BV  4501  .U5  1922 
Underhill,  Evelyn,  1875- 

1941. 
The  life  of  the  spirit  and 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

AND 

THE  LIFE  OF  TO-DAY 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

MYSTICISM 
THE   MYSTIC  WAY 
IMMANENCE 
THEOPHANIES 
PRACTICAL   MYSTICISM 
JACOPONE  DA  TODI 
THE   ESSENTIALS    OF   MYSTICISM 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

AND 

THE  LIFE  OF  TO-DAY 


.     BY 

EVELYN  UNDERHILL 

Author  of  "Mysticism/'  "The  Essentials  of  Mysticism,"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 
681  Fifth  Avenue 


Copyridit.   1922. 
BY  E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

All  rights  reseri>ed 


rniNTBD    IX    THE    IINITRD    8TATK8    OF    AMERICA 


VA"   .  TM  I  nil    rn"P\My 


IN  MEMORIAM 

E.  R.  B. 


PREFACE 

This  book  owes  its  origin  to  the  fact  that  in  the 
autumn  of  1921  the  authorities  of  Manchester  Col- 
lege, Oxford  invited  me  to  deliver  the  inaugural 
course  of  a  lectureship  in  religion  newly  established 
under  the  will  of  the  late  Professor  Upton.  No 
conditions  being  attached  to  this  appointment,  it 
seemed  a  suitable  opportunity  to  discuss,  so  far  as 
possible  in  the  language  of  the  moment,  some  of  the 
implicits  which  I  believe  to  underlie  human  effort 
and  achievement  in  the  domain  of  the  spiritual  life. 
The  material  gathered  for  this  purpose  has  now  been 
added  to,  revised,  and  to  some  extent  re-written,  in 
order  to  make  it  appropriate  to  the  purposes  of  the 
reader  rather  than  the  hearer.  As  the  object  of  the 
book  is  strictly  practical,  a  special  attempt  has  been 
made  to  bring  the  classic  experiences  of  the  spiritual 
life  into  line  with  the  conclusions  of  modern  psychol- 
ogy, and  in  particular,  to  suggest  some  of  the  direc- 
tions in  which  recent  psychological  research  may 
cast  light  on  the  standard  problems  of  the  religious 
consciousness.  This  subject  is  still  in  its  infancy; 
but  it  is  destined,  I  am  sure,  in  the  near  future  to 
exercise  a  transforming  influence  on  the  study  of 
spiritual  experience,  and  may  even  prove  to  be  the 
starting  point  of  a  new  apologetic.     Those  who  are 


viii  PREFACE 

inclined  either  to  fear  or  to  resent  the  application  to 
this  experience  of  those  laws  which — as  we  are  now 
gradually  discovering — govern  the  rest  of  our 
psychic  hfe,  or  who  are  offended  by  the  resulting 
demonstrations  of  continuity  between  our  most 
homely  and  most  lofty  reactions  to  the  universe, 
might  take  to  themselves  the  plain  words  of  Thomas 
a  Kempis:  "Thou  art  a  man  and  not  God,  thou 
art  flesh  and  no  angel," 

Since  my  subject  is  not  the  splendour  of  historic 
sanctity  but  the  normal  life  of  the  Spirit,  as  it  may 
be  and  is  lived  in  the  here-and-now,  I  have  done 
my  best  to  describe  the  character  and  meaning  of 
this  life  in  the  ordinary  terms  of  present  day  thought, 
and  with  little  or  no  use  of  the  technical  language 
of  mysticism.  For  the  same  reason,  no  attention 
has  been  given  to  those  abnormal  experiences  and 
states  of  consciousness,  which,  too  often  regarded 
ns  specially  "mystical,"  are  now  recognized  by  all 
competent  students  as  representing  the  unfortunate 
accidents  rather  than  the  abiding  substance  of  spirit- 
uality. Readers  of  these  pages  will  find  nothing 
about  trances,  ecstacies  and  other  rare  psychic 
phenomena;  which  sometimes  indicate  holiness,  and 
sometimes  only  disease.  For  information  on  these 
matters  they  must  go  to  larger  and  more  technical 
works.  Mv  aim  here  is  the  more  general  one,  of 
indicating  first  the  characteristic  experiences — dis- 
coverable within  all  great  religions — which  justify 
or  are  fundamental  to  the  spiritual  life,  and  the  way 
in  which  these  experiences  may  be  accommodated 


PREFACE  ix 

to  the  world-view  of  the  modern  man:  and  next,  the 
nature  of  that  spiritual  life  as  it  appears  in  human 
history.     The  succeeding  sections  of  the  book  treat 
in  some  detail  the  light  cast  on  spiritual  problems 
by  mental  analysis — a  process  which  need  not  neces- 
sarily be  conducted  from  the  standpoint  of  a  de- 
graded materialism — and   by   recent  work   on   the 
psychology  of  autistic  thought  and  of  suggestion. 
These  investigations  have  a  practical  interest  for 
every  man  who  desires  to  be   the  "captain  of  his 
soul."     The  relation  In  which  Institutional  religion 
does  or  should  stand  to  the  spiritual  life  is  also  in 
part  a  matter  for  psychology;  Avhich  Is  here  called 
upon  to  deal  with  the  religious  aspect  of  the  social 
Instincts,  and  the  problems  surrounding  symbols  and 
cultus.     These  chapters  lead  up  to  a  discussion  of 
the  personal  aspect  of  the  spiritual  life,  its  curve  of 
growth,  characters  and  activities;  and  a  further  sec- 
tion suggests  some  ways  In  which  educationists  might 
promote  the  upspringing  of  this  life  in  the  young. 
Finally,  the  last  chapter  attempts  to  place  the  fact 
of  the  life  of  the  Spirit  In  Its  relation  to  the  social 
order,  and  to  Indicate  some  of  the  results   which 
might   follow  upon  its  healthy  corporate  develop- 
ment.    It  is  superfluous  to  point  out  that  each  of 
these  subjects  needs,   at  least,   a  volume  to  itself: 
and  to  some  of  them  I  shall  hope  to  return  In  the 
future.     Their   treatment   In   the   present  work   Is 
necessarily  fragmentary  and  suggestive;  and  Is  In- 
tended rather  to  stimulate  thought,  than  to  offer 
solutions. 


X  PREFACE 

Part  of  Chapter  IV  has  already  appeared  in  "The 
Fortnightly  Review"  under  the  title  "Suggestion 
and  Religious  Experience."  Chapter  VIII  incor- 
porates several  passages  from  an  article  on  "Sources 
of  Power  in  Human  Life"  originally  contributed  to 
the  "Hibbert  Journal."  These  are  reprinted  by 
kind  permission  of  the  editors  concerned.  My 
numerous  debts  to  previous  writers  are  obvious,  and 
for  the  most  part  are  acknowledged  in  the  foot- 
notes; the  greatest,  to  the  works  of  Baron  von 
Hiigel,  will  be  clear  to  all  students  of  his  writings. 
Thanks  are  also  due  to  my  old  friend  William  Scott 
Palmer,  who  read  part  of  the  manuscript  and  gave 
me  much  generous  and  valuable  advice.  It  is  a 
pleasure  to  express  in  this  place  my  warm  gratitude 
first  to  the  Principal  and  authorities  of  Manchester 
College,  who  gave  me  the  opportunity  of  delivering 
these  chapters  in  their  original  form,  and  whose  un- 
failing sympathy  and  kindness  so  greatly  helped 
me:  and  secondly,  to  the  members  of  the  Oxford 
Faculty  of  Theology,  to  whom  I  owe  the  great  hon- 
our of  being  the  first  woman  lecturer  in  religion  to 
appear  in  the  University  list. 

E.    U. 

Epiphany,  1922. 


CONTENTS 


OHAPTBB  PAQK 

Preface vii 

I.    The  Characters  of  Spiritual  Life i 

II,    History  and  the  Life  of  the  Spirit 38 

III.  Psychology    and   the    life   of   the    Spirit:    (I)    the 

Analysis   of    Mind 74 

IV.  Psychology  and  the  Life  of  the  Spirit:   (II)    Con- 

templation   AND    Suggestion 112 

V.    Institutional  Religion  and  the  Life  of  the  Spirit  .  153 
VI.    The  Life  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Individual  ....  191 

VII,    The  Life  of  the  Spirit  and  Education 228 

VIII,    The  Life  of  the  Spirit  and  the  Social  Order   .     .  266 

Principal   Works   Used   and   Cited 300 

Index 307 


XI 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

AND 

THE  LIFE  OF  TO-DAY 


Initio  tu,  Domine,  terram  fundasti;    et  opera  manuum  tuarum 
sunt  caeli 

Ipsi   peribunt,  tu   autem   permanes;   et  omnes   sicut  vestimentura 
veterascent. 

Et  sicut  opertoriura  mutabis  eos,  et  mutabuntur; 

Tu  autem  idem  ipse  es,  et  anni  tui  non  deficient. 

Filii   servorum  tuorum  habitabunt;   ct   semen   eorum   in   seculum 
dirigetur. 

— Psalm  cii:  25-28 


The  Life  of  the  Spirit 

and 

The  Life  of  Today 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

This  book  has  been  called  "The  Life  of  the  Spirit 
and  the  Life  of  To-day"  in  order  to  emphasize 
as  much  as  possible  the  practical,  here-and-now  na- 
ture of  its  subject;  and  specially  to  combat  the  idea 
that  the  spiritual  life — or  the  mystic  life,  as  its  rnore 
intense  manifestations  are  sometimes  called — is  to 
be  regarded  as  primarily  a  matter  of  history.  It 
is  not.  It  is  a  matter  of  biology.  Though  we  can- 
not disregard  history  in  our  study  of  it,  that  history 
will  only  be  valuable  to  us  in  so  far  as  we  keep  tight 
hold  on  its  direct  connection  with  the  present,  its 
immediate  bearing  on  our  own  lives:  and  this  we 
shall  do  only  in  so  far  as  we  realize  the  unity  of  all 
the  higher  experiences  of  the  race.  In  fact,  were 
I  called  upon  to  choose  a  motto  which  should 
express  the  central  notion  of  these  chapters,  that 
motto  would  be — "There  are  diversities  of  gifts, 
but  the  same  Spirit."     This  declaration  I  would  in- 


2  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

terpret  in  the  widest  possible  sense;  as  suggesting 
the  underlying  harmony  and  single  inspiration  of  all 
man's  various  and  apparently  conflicting  expres- 
sions of  his  instinct  for  fullness  of  life.  For  we 
shall  not  be  able  to  make  order,  in  any  hopeful  sense, 
of  the  tangle  of  material  which  is  before  us,  until 
we  have  subdued  it  to  this  ruling  thought:  seen  one 
transcendent  Object  towards  which  all  our  twisting 
pathways  run,  and  one  impulsion  pressing  us  towards 
it. 

As  psychology  is  now  teaching  us  to  find,  at  all 
levels  of  our  craving,  dreaming,  or  thinking,  the 
diverse  expressions  of  one  psychic  energy;  so  that 
type  of  philosophy  which  comes  nearest  to  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Spirit,  invites  us  to  find  at  all  levels  of 
life  the  workings  and  strivings  of  one  Power:  "a 
Reality  which  both  underlies  and  crowns  all  our 
other,  lesser  strivings."  ^  Variously  manifested  in 
partial  achievements  of  order  and  goodness,  in  di- 
versities of  beauty,  and  in  our  graded  apprehensions 
of  truth,  this  Spirit  is  yet  most  fully  known  to  us  in 
the  transcendent  values  of  holiness  and  love.  The 
more  deeply  it  is  loved  by  man,  the  nearer  he  draws 
to  its  heart:  and  the  greater  his  love,  the  more 
fully  does  he!  experience  its  transforming  and  ener- 
gizing power.  The  words  of  Plotinus  are  still  true 
for  every  one  of  us,  and  are  unaffected  by  the  pres- 
ence or  absence  of  creed: 

1  Von  IIuRcl:  "Essays  and  Addresses  on  the  Philosophy  of  Relig- 
ion," p.  60. 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  3 

"Yonder  Is  the  true  object  of  our  love,  which  it 
is  possible  to  grasp  and  to  live  with  and  truly  to  pos- 
sess, since  no  envelope  of  flesh  separates  us  from 
It.  He  who  has  seen  it  knows  what  I  say,  that  the 
soul  then  has  another  life,  when  It  comes  to  God, 
and  having  come  possesses  Him,  and  knows  when  in 
that  state  that  It  Is  in  the  presence  of  the  dispenser 
of  true  life  and  that  It  needs  nothing  further."  ^ 

So,  If  we  would  achieve  anything  like  a  real  in- 
tegration of  life — and  until  we  have  done  so,  we  are 
bound  to  be  restless  and  uncertain  in  our  touch  upon 
experience — we  are  compelled  to  press  back  towards 
contact  with  this  living  Reality,  however  conceived 
by  us.  And  this  not  by  way  of  a  retreat  from  our 
actual  physical  and  mental  life,  but  by  way  of  a 
fulfilment  of  it. 

More  perhaps  than  ever  before,  men  are  now 
driven  to  ask  themselves  the  searching  question  of 
the  disciple  in  Boehme's  Dialogue  on  the  Supersen- 
sual  Life:  ''Seeing  I  am  in  nature,  how  may  I  come 
through  nature  into  the  supersensual  ground,  with- 
out destroying  nature?"  -  And  such  a  coming 
through  into  the  ground,  such  a  finding  and  feeling 
of  Eternal  Life,  is  I  take  it  the  central  business  of 
religion.  For  religion  is  committed  to  achieving  a 
synthesis  of  the  eternal  and  the  ever-fleeting,  of 
nature  and  of  spirit;  lifting  up  the  whole  of  life  to 
a  greater  reality,  because  a  greater  participation  In 

^  Ennead  I,  6.  7. 

2  Jacob  Boehme:  "The  Way  to  Christ,"  Pt.  IV. 


4  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

eternity.  Such  a  participation  in  eternity,  mani- 
fested in  the  time-world,  is  the  very  essence  of  the 
spiritual  life:  but,  set  as  we  are  in  mutability,  our 
apprehensions  of  it  can  only  be  partial  and  relative. 
Absolutes  are  known  only  to  absolute  mind;  our 
measurements,  however  careful  and  intricate,  can 
never  tally  with  the  measurements  of  God.  As 
Einstein  conceives  of  space  curved  round  the  sun  we, 
borrowing  his  symbolism  for  a  moment,  may  per- 
haps think  of  the  world  of  Spirit  as  curved  round 
the  human  soul;  shaped  to  our  finite  understanding, 
and  therefore  presenting  to  us  innumerable  angles 
of  approach.  This  means  that  God  can  and  must 
be  sought  only  within  and  through  our  human  ex- 
perience. "Where,"  says  Jacob  Boehme,  "will  you 
seek  for  God?  Seek  Him  in  your  soul,  which  has 
proceeded  out  of  the  Eternal  Nature,  the  living 
fountain  of  forces  wherein  the  Divine  working 
stands."  ^ 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  such  limitation  as  this 
is  no  argument  for  agnosticism.  For  this  our  hu- 
man experience  in  its  humbling  imperfection,  how- 
ever we  interpret  it,  is  as  real  within  its  own  system 
of  reference  as  anything  else.  It  is  our  inevitably 
limited  way  of  laying  hold  on  the  stuff  of  existence : 
and  not  less  real  for  that  than  the  monkeys'  way 
on  one  hand,  or  the  angels'  way  on  the  other. 
Only  we  must  be  sure  that  we  do  it  as  thoroughly  and 
completely    as    we    can;    disdaining    the    indolence 

1  Op.  cit.,  loc.  cit. 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  5 

which  so  easily  relapses  to  the  lower  level  and  the 
smaller  world. 

And  the  first  point  I  wish  to  make  is,  that  the  ex- 
perience which  we  call  the  life  of  the  Spirit  is  such  a 
genuine  fact;  which  meets  us  at  all  times  and  places, 
and  at  all  levels  of  life.  It  is  an  experience  which  is 
independent  of,  and  often  precedes,  any  explanation 
or  rationalization  we  may  choose  to  make  of  it:  and 
no  one,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  takes  any  real  interest  in 
the  explanation,  unless  he  has  had  some  form  of  the 
experience.  We  notice,  too,  that  it  is  most  ordi- 
narily and  also  most  impressively  given  to  us  as  such 
an  objective  experience,  whole  and  unanalyzed;  and 
that  when  it  is  thus  given,  and  perceived  as  effecting 
a  transfiguration  of  human  character,  we  on  our  part 
most  readily  understand  and  respond  to  it. 

Thus  Plotinus,  than  whom  few  persons  have  lived 
more  capable  of  analysis,  can  only  say:  "The  soul 
knows  when  in  that  state  that  it  is  in  the  presence 
of  the  dispenser  of  true  life."  Yet  in  saying  this, 
does  he  not  tell  us  far  more,  and  rouse  in  us  a 
greater  and  more  fruitful  longing,  than  in  all  his 
disquisitions  about  the  worlds  of  Spirit  and  of  Soul? 
And  Kabir,  from  another  continent  and  time,  saying 
"More  than  all  else  do  I  cherish  at  heart  the  love 
which  makes  me  to  live  a  limitless  life  in  this 
world,"  ^  assures  us  in  these  words  that  he  too  has 
known  that  more  abundant  life.  These  are  the 
statements  of  the  pure  religious  experience,  in  so  far 

1  "One  Hundred  Poems  of  Kabir,"  p,  31. 


6  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

as  "pure"  experience  is  possible  to  us;  which  is  only 
of  course  in  a  limited  and  relative  sense.  The  sub- 
jective element,  all  that  the  psychologist  means  by 
apperception,  must  enter  in,  and  control  it.  Never- 
theless, they  refer  to  man's  communion  with  an  inde- 
pendent objective  Reality.  This  experience  is  more 
real  and  concrete,  therefore  more  important,  than 
any  of  the  systems  by  which  theology  seeks  to  explain 
it.  We  may  then  take  it,  without  prejudice  to  any 
special  belief,  that  the  spiritual  life  we  wish  to  study 
is  one  life;  based  on  experience  of  one  Reality,  and 
manifested  in  the  diversity  of  gifts  and  graces  which 
men  have  been  willing  to  call  true,  holy,  beautiful  and 
good.  For  the  moment  at  least  we  may  accept  the 
definition  of  it  given  by  Dr.  Bosanquet,  as  "oneness 
with  the  Supreme  Good  in  every  facet  of  the  heart 
and  v/ill."  ^  And  since  without  derogation  of  its 
transcendent  character,  its  vigour,  wonder  and 
worth,  it  is  in  human  experience  rather  than  in  spec- 
ulation that  we  are  bound  to  seek  it,  we  shall  look 
first  at  the  forms  taken  by  man's  intuition  of  Eter- 
nity, the  life  to  which  it  seems  to  call  him;  and  next 
at  the  actual  appearance  of  this  life  in  history. 
Then  at  the  psychological  machinery  by  which  we 
may  lay  hold  of  it,  the  contributions  Avhich  religious 
institutions  make  to  its  realization;  and  last,  turning 
our  backs  on  these  partial  explorations  of  the  living 
Whole,  seek  if  we  can  to  seize  something  of  its 
inwardness  as  it  appears  to  the  individual,  the  way 

1  Bernard  Bosanquet:  "What  Religion  Is,"  p.  32. 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  7 

in  which  education  may  best  prepare  its  fulfilment, 
and  the  part  it  must  play  in  the  social  group. 

We  begin  therefore  at  the  starting  point  of  this 
life  of  Spirit:  in  man's  vague,  fluctuating,  yet  per- 
sistent apprehension  of  an  enduring  and  transcen- 
dent reality — his  instinct  for  God.  The  character- 
istic forms  taken  by  this  instinct  are  simple  and  fairly 
well  known.  Complication  only  comes  in  with  the 
interpretation  we  put  on    them. 

By  three  main  ways  we  tend  to  realize  our  limited 
personal  relations  with  that  transcendent  Other 
which  we  call  divine,  eternal  or  real;  and  these,  ap- 
pearing perpetually  in  the  vast  literature  of  religion, 
might  be  illustrated  from  all  places  and  all  times. 

First,  there  is  the  profound  sense  of  security:  of 
being  safely  held  in  a  cosmos  of  which,  despite  all 
contrary  appearance,  peace  is  the  very  heart,  and 
which  is  not  inimical  to  our  true  interests.  For  those 
whose  religious  experience  takes  this  form,  God  is 
the  Ground  of  the  soul,  the  Unmoved,  our  Very 
Rest;  statements  which  meet  us  again  and  again  in 
spiritual  literature.  This  certitude  of  a  principle 
of  permanence  within  and  beyond  our  world  of 
change — the  sense  of  Eternal  Life — lies  at  the  very 
centre  of  the  religious  consciousness;  which  will 
never  on  this  point  capitulate  to  the  attacks  of 
philosophy  on  the  one  hand  (such  as  those  of  the 
New  Realists)  or  of  psychology  on  the  other  hand, 
assuring  him  that  what  he  mistakes  for  the  Eternal 
World  is  really  his  own  unconscious  mind.     Here 


8  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

man,  at  least  in  his  great  representatives — the  per- 
sons of  transcendent  religious  genius — seems  to  get 
beyond  all  labels.  He  finds  and  feels  a  truth  that 
cannot  fail  him,  and  that  satisfies  both  his  heart  and 
mind:  a  justification  of  that  transcendental  feeling 
which  is  the  soul  alike  of  philosophy  and  of  art. 
If  his  life  has  its  roots  here,  it  will  be  a  fruitful 
tree;  and  whatever  its  outward  activities,  it  will 
be  a  spiritual  life,  since  it  Is  lived,  as  George  Fox  was 
so  fond  of  saying,  in  the  Universal  Spirit.  All 
know  the  great  passage  in  St.  Augustine's  Confes- 
sions in  which  he  describes  how  "the  mysterious  eye 
of  his  soul  gazed  on  the  Light  that  never  changes; 
above  the  eye  of  the  soul,  and  above  Intelligence."  ^ 
There  is  nothing  archaic  In  such  an  experience. 
Though  its  description  may  depend  on  the  language 
of  Neoplatonism,  it  is  In  Its  essence  as  possible  and 
as  fruitful  for  us  to-day  as  it  was  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, and  the  doctrine  and  discipline  of  Christian 
prayer  have  always  admitted  its  validity. 

Here  and  in  many  other  examples  which  might  be 
quoted,  the  unique  spiritual  fact  is  interpreted  in  a 
non-personal  and  cosmic  way;  and  we  must  remem- 
ber that  what  is  described  to  us  is  always,  inevitably, 
the  more  or  less  emotional  interpretation,  never  the 
pure  Immediacy  of  experience.  This  interpretation 
frequently  makes  use  of  the  symbolisms  of  space, 
stillness,  and  light:  the  contemplative  soul  is  "lost 

1  Aug.  :  Conf.  VII,  17. 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  9 

in  the  ocean  of  the  Godhead,"  "enters  His  silence" 
or  exclaims  with  Dante: 

"la  mia  vista,  venendo  sincera, 
e  piu  e  piu  entrava  per  lo  raggio 
deir  alta  luce,  che  da  se  e  vera."  ^ 

But  in  the  second  characteristic  form  of  the  reli- 
gious experience,  the  relationship  is  felt  rather  as  the 
intimate  and  reciprocal  communion  of  a  person  with 
a  Person;  a  form  of  apprehension  which  is  common 
to  the  great  majority  of  devout  natures.  It  is  true 
that  Divine  Reality,  while  doubtless  including  in 
its  span  all  the  values  we  associate  with  personality, 
must  far  overpass  it:  and  this  conclusion  has  been 
reached  again  and  again  by  profoundly  religious 
minds,  of  whom  among  Christians  we  need  only 
mention  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  Eckhart,  and 
Ruysbroeck.  Yet  these  very  minds  have  always  in 
the  end  discovered  the  necessity  of  finding  place  for 
the  overwhelming  certitude  of  a  personal  contact,  a 
prevenient  and  an  answering  love.  For  it  is  always 
in  a  personal  and  emotional  relationship  that  man 
finds  himself  impelled  to  surrender  to  God;  and 
this  surrender  is  felt  by  him  to  evoke  a  response. 
It  is  significant  that  even  modern  liberalism  is  forced, 
in  the  teeth  of  rationality,  to  acknowledge  this 
fact  of  the  religious  experience.     Thus  we  have  on 

^  "My  vision,  becoming  more  purified,  entered  deeper  and  deeper 
into  the  ray  of  that  Supernal  Light,  which  in  itself  is  true" — Par. 
XXXIII,   52. 


10  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

the  one  hand  the  Catholic-minded  but  certainly  un- 
orthodox Spanish  thinker,  Miguel  de  Unamuno,  con- 
fessing— 

"I  believe  in  God  as  I  believe  In  my  friends,  be- 
cause I  feel  the  breath  of  His  affection,  feel  His  in- 
visible and  intangible  hand,  drawing  me,  leading 
me,  grasping  me.  .  .  .  Once  and  again  in  my  life 
I  have  seen  myself  suspended  in  a  trance  over  the 
abyss;  once  and  again  I  have  found  myself  at  the 
cross-roads,  confronted  by  a  choice  of  ways  and 
aware  that  in  choosing  one  I  should  be  renouncing 
all  the  others — for  there  is  no  turning  back  upon 
these  roads  of  life;  and  once  and  again  in  such 
unique  moments  as  these  I  have  felt  the  impulse 
of  a  mighty  power,  conscious,  sovereign  and  loving. 
And  then,  before  the  feet  of  the  wayfarer,  opens 
out  the  way  of  the  Lord."  ^ 

Compare  with  this  Upton  the  Unitarian: 
"If,"  he  says,  "this  Absolute  Presence,  which 
meets  us  face  to  face  in  the  most  momentous  of 
our  life's  experiences,  which  pours  into  our  faint- 
ing wills  the  elixir  of  new  life  and  strength,  and 
into  our  woun'ded  hearts  the  balm  of  a  quite  in- 
finite sympathy,  cannot  fitly  be  called  a  personal 
presence,  it  is  only  because  this  word  personal  is  too 
poor  and  carries  with  it  associations  too  human  and 
too  limited  adequately  to  express  this  profound 
God-consciousness."  -^ 

1  "The   Tragic   Sense   of   Life   in   Men    and   Peoples,"   p.   194. 

2  T.   Upton:    "The  Bases  of  Religious  Belief,"  p.  363- 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE         11 

Such  a  personal  God-consciousness  Is  the  one  im- 
pelling cause  of  those  moral  struggles,  sacrifices  and 
purifications,  those  costing  and  heroic  activities, 
to  which  all  greatly  spiritual  souls  find  them- 
selves drawn.  We  note  that  these  souls  experience 
it  even  when  it  conflicts  with  their  philosophy:  for  a 
real  religious  intuition  is  always  accepted  by  the 
self  that  has  it  as  taking  priority  of  thought,  and 
carrying  with  it  so  to  speak  its  own  guarantees. 
Thus  Blake,  for  whom  the  Holy  Ghost  was  an  "In- 
tellectual fountain,"  hears  the  Divine  Voice  crying: 

"I  am  not  a  God  afar  off,  I  am  a  brother  and  friend ; 
Within  your  bosoms  I  reside,  and  you  reside  in  me."  ^ 

Thus  in  the  last  resort  the  Sufi  poet  can  only  say : 

"O  soul,  seek  the  Beloved ;  O  friend,  seek  the  Friend !"  ^ 

Thus  even  Plotinus  Is  driven  to  speak  of  his  Di- 
vine Wisdom  as  the  Father  and  ever-present  Com- 
panion of  the  soul,^  and  Kabir,  for  whom  God  is  the 
Unconditioned  and  the  Formless,  can  yet  exclaim : 

"From  the  beginning  until  the  end  of  time  there 
is  love  between  me  and  thee :  and  how  shall  such 
love  be  extinguished?"  ■* 

Christianity,  through  its  concepts  of  the  Divine 
Fatherhood  and  of  the  Eternal  Christ,  has  given  to 
this  sense  of  personal  communion  its  fullest  and 
most  beautiful  expression: 

1  Blake:  "Jerusalem,"  Cap.  i. 

2  Nicholson:    "The    Divani    Shamsi   Tabriz,"    p.    141. 

3  Ennead  V.  i.  3. 

*  Kabir,  op.  cit.,  p.  41. 


12  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

"Amore,  chi  t'ama  non  sta  ozioso, 
tanto  li  par  dolce  de  te  gustare, 
ma  tutta  ora  vfve  desideroso 
como  te  possa  stretto  piu  amare; 
che  tanto  stamper  te  lo  cor  gioioso, 
chi  nol  sentisse,  nol  porria  parlare 
quanto  e  dolce  a  gustare  lo  tuo  sapore."  * 

On  the  immense  question  of  what  it  is  that  lies 
behind  this  sense  of  direct  intercourse,  this  passion- 
ate friendship  with  the  Invisible,  I  cannot  enter. 
But  it  has  been  one  of  the  strongest  and  most 
fruitful  influences  in  religious  history,  and  gives 
in  particular  its  special  colour  to  the  most  perfect 
developments  of  Christian  mysticism. 

Last — and  here  is  the  aspect  of  religious  experi- 
ence which  is  specially  to  concern  us — Spirit  is  felt 
as  an  inflowing  |i0wer,  a  veritable  accession  of 
vitality;  energizing  the  self,  or  the  religious  group, 
impelling  it  to  the  fullest  and  most  zealous  living- 
out  of  its  existence,  giving  it  fresh  joy  and  vigour, 
and  lifting  it  to  fresh  levels  of  life.  This  sense 
of  enhanced  life  is  a  mark  of  all  religions  of  the 
Spirit.  "He  giveth  power  to  the  faint,"  says  the 
Second  Isaiah,  "and  to  them  that  hath  no  might  he 
Increaseth  strength  .  .  .  they  that  wait  upon  the 
Lord  shall  renew  their  strength;  they  shall  mount 
up  with  wings  as  eagles;  they  shall  run  and  not  be 

^  "Love,  whoso  loves  thee  cannot  idle  be,  so  sweet  it  seems  to 
him  to  taste  thee;  but  every  hour  he  lives  in  longing,  that  he  may 
love  thee  more  straitly.  For  in  thee  the  heart  so  joyful  dwells,  that 
he  who  feels  it  not  can  never  say  how  sweet  it  is  to  taste  thy 
savour" — Jacopone   da  Todi:  Lauda   loi. 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        13 

weary;  and  they  shall  walk,  and  not  faint."  ^  "I 
live — yet  not  I,"  "I  can  do  all  things,"  says  81:. 
Paul,  seeking  to  express  his  dependence  on  this 
Divine  strength  invading  and  controlling  him:  and 
assures  his  neophytes  that  they  too  have  received 
"the  Spirit  of  power."  "My  life,"  says  St.  Au- 
gustine, "shall  be  a  real  life,  being  wholly  full  of 
Thee."  ^  "Having  found  God,"  says  a  modern 
Indian  saint,  "the  current  of  my  life  flowed  on 
swiftly,  I  gained  fresh  strength."  ^  All  other  men 
and  women  of  the  Spirit  speak  in  the  same  sense, 
when  they  try  to  describe  the  source  of  their  ac- 
tivity and  endurance. 

So,  the  rich  experiences  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness seem  to  be  resumed  in  these  three  outstanding 
types  of  spiritual  awareness.  The  cosmic,  ontolog- 
ical,  or  transcendent;  finding  God  as  the  infinite 
Reality  outside  and  beyond  us.  The  personal,  find- 
ing Him  as  the  living  and  responsive  object  of  our 
love,  in  immediate  touch  with  us.  The  dynamic, 
finding  Him  as  the  power  that  dwells  within  or 
energizes  us.  These  are  not  exclusive  but  comple- 
mentary apprehensions,  giving  objectives  to  intellect 
feeling  and  will.  They  must  all  be  taken  Into  ac- 
count in  any  attempt  to  estimate  the  full  character 
of  the  spiritual  life,  and  this  life  can  hardly  achieve 
perfection  unless  all  three  be  present  in  some  meas- 

1  Isaiah  xl,  29-31. 

2  Aug.:  Conf.  X,  28. 

3  "Autobiography    of    the    Maharishi    Devendranath    Tagore," 
Cap.  12. 


14  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ure.  Thus  the  French  contemplative  Lucie-Chrls- 
tlne  says,  that  when  the  voice  of  God  called  her  it 
was  at  one  and  the  same  time  a  Light,  a  Drawing, 
and  a  Power,^  and  her  Indian  contemporary  the 
Maharishi  Devendranath  Tagore,  that  "Seekers 
after  God  must  realize  Brahma  in  these  three 
places.  They  must  see  Him  within,  see  Him  with- 
out, and  see  Him  in  that  abode  of  Brahma  where 
He  exists  in  Himself."  ^  And  it  seems  to  me,  that 
what  we  have  in  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  is  above  all  the  crystallization  and  mind's 
interpretation  of  these  three  ways  in  which  our 
simple  contact  with  God  is  actualized  by  us.  It  is, 
like  so  many  other  dogmas  when  we  get  to  the  bot- 
tom of  them,  an  attempt  to  describe  experience. 
What  is  that  supernal  symphony  of  which  this  elu- 
sive music,  with  its  three  complementary  strains, 
forms  part?  We  cannot  know  this,  since  we  are  de- 
barred by  our  situation  from  knowledge  of  wholes. 
But  even  those  strains  which  we  do  hear,  assure  us 
how  far  we  are  yet  from  conceiving  the  possibilities 
of  life,  of  power,  of  beauty  which  are  contained 
in  them. 

And  if  the  first  type  of  experience,  with  the  im- 
mense feeling  of  assurance,  of  peace,  and  of  quietude 
which  comes  from  our  intuitive  contact  with  that 
world  which  Ruysbroeck  called  the  "world  that  is 
unwalled,"  ^  and  from  the  mind's  utter  surrender 

^  "Le  Journal   Spirituel    de   Lucie-Christine,"   p.   ii. 

2  "Autobiography  of  Maharishi  Devendranath   Tagore,"  Cap.  20. 

3  Ruysbroeck:  "The  Book  of  tlie  XH  Beguines,"  Cap.  8. 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        15 

and  abolition  of  resistances — if  all  this  seems  to 
lead  to  a  merely  static  or  contemplative  conception 
of  the  spiritual  life;  the  third  type  of  experience, 
with  its  impulse  towards  action,  its  often  strongly 
felt  accession  of  vitality  and  power,  leads  inevitably 
to  a  complementary  and  dynamic  interpretation  of 
that  life.  Indeed,  if  the  first  moment  in  the  life 
of  the  Spirit  be  man's  apprehension  of  Eternal 
Life,  the  second  moment — without  which  the  first 
has  little  worth  for  him — consists  of  his  response 
to  that  transcendent  Reality.  Perception  of  it  lays 
on  him  the  obligation  of  living  in  its  atmosphere, 
fulfilling  its  meaning,  if  he  can:  and  this  will  in- 
volve for  him  a  measure  of  inward  transformation, 
a  difficult  growth  and  change.  Thus  the  ideas  of 
new  birth  and  regeneration  have  always  been,  and 
I  think  must  ever  be,  closely  associated  with  man's 
discovery  of  God:  and  the  soul's  true  path  seems 
to  be  from  intuition,  through  adoration,  to  moral 
effort,  and  thence  to  charity. 

Even  so  did  the  Oxford  Methodists,  who  began 
by  trying  only  to  worship  God  and  be  good  by  ad- 
hering to  a  strict  devotional  rule,  soon  find  them- 
selves Impelled  to  try  to  do  good  by  active  social 
work.^  And  at  his  highest  development,  and  In  so 
far  as  he  has  appropriated  the  full  richness  of  exr 
perience  which  is  offered  to  him,  man  will  and 
should  find  himself,  as  It  were,  flung  to  and  fro  be- 
tween action  and  contemplation.     Between  the  call 

1  See  Overton:  "Life  of  Wesley."  Cap.  2. 


16  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

to  transcendence,  to  a  simple  self-loss  in  the  unfath- 
omable and  adorable  life  of  God,  and  the  call  to  a 
full,  rich  and  various  actualization  of  personal  life, 
in  the  energetic  strivings  of  a  fellow  worker  with 
Him:  between  the  soul's  profound  sense  of  trans- 
cendent love,  and  its  felt  possession  of  and  duty 
towards  immanent  love — a  parodox  which  only 
some  form  of  incarnational  philosophy  can  solve. 
It  is  said  of  Abu  Said,  the  great  Sufi,  at  the  full  term 
of^his  development,  that  he  "did  all  normal  things 
while  ever  thinking  of  God."  ^  Here,  I  believe, 
we  find  the  norm  of  the  spiritual  life,  in  such  a  com- 
plete response  both  to  the  temporal  and  to  the 
eternal  revelations  and  demands  of  the  Divine  na- 
ture: on  the  one  hand,  the  highest  and  most  costing 
calls  made  on  us  by  that  world  of  succession  in  which 
we  find  ourselves;  on  the  other,  an  unmoved  abiding 
in  the  bosom  of  eternity,  "where  was  never  heard 
quarter-clock  to  strike,  never  seen  minute  glasse  to 
turne."  ^ 

There  have  been  many  schools  and  periods  in 
which  one  half  of  this  dual  life  of  man  has  been  un- 
duly emphasized  to  the  detriment  of  the  other. 
Often  in  the  East — and  often  too  in  the  first,  pre- 
Benedictine  phase  of  Christian  monasticism — there 
has  been  an  unbalanced  cultivation  of  the  contem- 
plative life,  resulting  in  a  narrow,  abnormal,  imper- 
fectly vitalized  and  a-soclal  type  of  spirituality.     On 

1 R.   A.   Nicholson:  "Studies  in   Islamic   Mysticism,"   Cap.   i. 
2  "Donne's  Sermons,"  edited  by  L.  Pearsall  Smith,  p.  236. 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE         17 

the  other  hand,  In  our  own  day  the  tendency  to  ac- 
tion usually  obliterates  the  contemplative  side  of  ex- 
perience altogether:  and  the  result  Is  the  feverish- 
ness,  exhaustion  and  uncertainty  of  aim  characteris- 
tic of  the  over-driven  and  the  underfed.  But  no 
one  can  be  said  to  live  in  Its  fulness  the  life  of  the 
Spirit  who  does  not  observe  a  due  balance  between 
the  two:  both  receiving  and  giving,  both  apprehend- 
ing and  expressing,  and  thus  achieving  that  state  of 
which  Ruysbroeck  said  "Then  only  is  our  life  a 
whole,  when  work  and  contemplation  dwell  in  us 
side  by  side,  and  we  are  perfectly  In  both  of  them 
at  once."  ^  All  Christian  writers  on  the  life  of  the 
Spirit  point  to  the  perfect  achievement  of  this  two- 
fold ideal  In  Christ;  the  pattern  of  that  completed 
humanity  towards  which  the  Indwelling  Spirit  Is 
pressing  the  race.  His  deeds  of  power  and  mercy. 
His  richly  various  responses  to  every  level  of  human 
existence,  His  gift  to  others  of  new  faith  and  life, 
were  directly  dependent  on  the  nights  spent  on  the 
mountain  In  prayer.  When  St.  Paul  entreats  us  to 
grow  up  Into  the  fulness  of  His  stature,  this  Is  the 
ideal  that  Is  Implied. 

In  the  Intermediate  term  of  the  religious  experi- 
ence, that  felt  communion  with  a  Person  which  Is  the 
clou  of  the  devotional  life,  we  get  as  It  were  the  link 
between  the  extreme  apprehensions  of  transcendence 
and  of  Immanence,  and  their  expression  in  the  lives 
of  contemplation  and  of  action;  and  also  a  focus 

^Ruysbroeck,  "The  Sparkling  Stone,"  Cap.  14. 


18  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

for  that  religious  emotion  which  is  the  most  power- 
ful stimulus  to  spiritual  growth.  It  is  needless  to 
emphasize  the  splendid  use  which  Christianity  has 
made  of  this  type  of  experience;  nor  unfortunately, 
the  exaggerations  to  which  it  has  led.  Both  ex- 
tremes are  richly  represented  in  the  literature  of 
mysticism.  But  we  should  remember  that  Christi- 
anity is  not  alone  in  thus  requiring  place  to  be  made 
for  such  a  conception  of  God  as  shall  give  body  to 
all  the  most  precious  and  fruitful  experiences  of  the 
heart,  providing  simple  human  sense  and  human 
feeling  with  something  on  which  to  lay  hold.  In 
India,  there  is  the  existence,  within  and  alongside  the 
austere  worship  of  the  unconditioned  Brahma,  of 
the  ardent  personal  Vaishnavite  devotion  to  the 
heart's  Lord,  known  as  Bhakti  Marga.  In  Islam, 
there  is  the  impassioned  longing  of  the  Sufis  for  the 
Beloved,  who  is  "the  Rose  of  all  Reason  and  all 
Truth." 

"Without  Thee,  O  Beloved,  I  cannot  rest; 

Thy  goodness  towards  me  I  cannot  reckon. 

Tho'  every  hair  on  my  body  becomes  a  tongue 

A  thousandth  part  of  the  thanks  due  to  Thee  I  cannot  tell."  ^ 

There  is  the  sudden  note  of  rapture  which  startles 
us  in  the  Neoplatonists,  as  when  Plotinus  speaks  of 
"the  flame  of  love  for  what  is  there  to  know — the 
passion  of  the  lover  resting  on  the  bosom  of  his 
love."  2     Surely  we  may  accept  all  these,  as  the  in- 

1  Bishr-i-Yasin,  cf.     Nicholson,  op.  cit.,  loc.  cit. 

2  Ennead  VI.  9-  4- 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE         19 

stinctive  responses  of  a  diversity  of  spirits  to  the 
one  eternal  Spirit  of  life  and  love:  and  recognize 
that  without  such  personal  response,  such  a  dis- 
covery of  imperishable  love,  a  fully  lived  spiritual 
life  is  no  more  possible  than  Is  a  fully  lived  physical 
life  from  which  love  has  been  left  out. 

When  we  descend  from  experience  to  interpreta- 
tion, the  paradoxical  character  of  such  a  personal 
sense  of  intimacy  is  eased  for  us,  If  we  remember 
that  the  religious  man's  awareness  of  the  Indwelling 
Spirit,  or  of  a  Divine  companionship — whatever 
name  he  gives  It — Is  just  his  limited  realization, 
achieved  by  means  of  his  own  mental  machinery,  of 
a  universal  and  not  a  particular  truth.  To  this 
realization  he  brings  all  his  human — more,  his  sub- 
human— feelings  and  experiences :  not  only  those 
which  are  vaguely  called  his  spiritual  Intuitions,  but 
the  full  weight  of  his  Impulsive  and  emotional  life. 
His  experience  and  its  interpretation  are,  then,  In- 
evitably conditoned  by  this  appercelving  mass. 
And  here  I  think  the  intellect  should  show  mercy, 
and  not  probe  without  remorse  Into  those  tender 
places  where  the  heart  and  the  spirit  are  at  one. 
Let  us  then  be  content  to  note,  that  when  we  consult 
the  works  of  those  who  have  best  and  most  fully 
interpreted  their  religion  in  a  universal  sense,  we 
find  how  careful  they  are  to  provide  a  category  for 
this  experience  of  a  personally  known  and  loved  in- 
dwelling  Divinity — man's  Father,  Lover,  Saviour, 
ever-present    Companion — which    shall    avoid    Its 


20  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

identification  with  the  mere  spirit  of  Nature,  whilst 
safeguarding  its  immanence  no  less  than  its  trans- 
cendent quality.  Thus,  Julian  of  Norwich  heard 
in  her  meditations  the  voice  of  God  saying  to  her, 
"See!  I  am  in  all  things!  See!  I  lift  never  mine 
hand  from  off  my  works,  nor  ever  shall!"  ^  Is 
it  possible  to  state  more  plainly  the  indivisible 
identity  of  the  Spirit  of  Life?  "See!  I  am  in  all 
things!"  In  the  terrific  energies  of  the  stellar  uni- 
verse, and  the  smallest  song  of  the  birds.  In  the 
seething  struggle  of  modern  industrialism,  as  much 
a  part  of  nature,  of  those  works  on  which  His  hands 
are  laid,  as  the  more  easily  comprehended  economy 
of  the  ant-heap  and  the  hive.  This  sense  of  the  per- 
sonal presence  of  an  abiding  Reality,  fulfilling  and 
transcending  all  our  highest  values,  here  in  our 
space-time  world  of  effort,  may  well  be  regarded  as 
the  differential  mark  of  real  spiritual  experience, 
wherever  found.  It  chimes  well  with  the  definition 
of  Professor  Pratt,  who  observes  that  the  truly 
spiritual  man,  though  he  may  not  be  any  better  mor- 
ally than  his  non-religious  neighbour,  "has  a  confi- 
dence in  the  universe  and  an  inner  joy  which  the 
other  does  not  know — Is  more  at  home  in  the  uni- 
verse as  a  whole,  than  other  men."  ^ 

If,  in  their  attempt  to  describe  their  experience  of 
this  companioning  Reality,  spiritual  men  of  all  types 
have  exhausted  all  the   resources  and  symbols  of 

1  "Revelations  of  Divine  Love,"  Cap.  II. 

2  Pratt:    "The    Religious    Consciousness,"    Cap.    2. 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        21 

poetry,  even  earthly  lovers  are  obliged  to  do  that,  in 
order  to  suggest  a  fraction  of  the  values  contained 
in  earthly  love.  Such  a  divine  presence  is  dram- 
atized for  Christianity  in  the  historic  incarnation, 
though  not  limited  by  it:  and  it  is  continued  into  his- 
tory by  the  beautiful  'Christian  conception  of  the 
eternal  indwelling  Christ.  The  distinction  made  by 
the  Bhakti  form  of  Hinduism  between  the  Manifest 
and  the  Unmanifest  God  seeks  to  express  this  same 
truth;  and  shows  that  this  idea,  in  one  form  or 
another,  is  a  necessity  for  religious  thought. 

Further  and  detailed  illustration  of  spiritual  ex- 
perience in  itself,  as  a  genuine  and  abiding  human 
fact — a  form  of  life — independent  of  the  dogmatic 
interpretations  put  on  it,  will  come  up  as  we  proceed. 
I  now  wish  to  go  on  to  a  second  point:  this — that  it 
follows  that  any  complete  description  of  human 
life  as  we  know  it,  must  find  room  for  the  spiritual 
factor,  and  for  that  religious  life  and  temper  in 
which  it  finds  expression.  This  place  must  be 
found,  not  merely  in  the  phenomenal  series,  as  we 
might  find  room  for  any  special  human  activity  or 
aberration,  from  the  medicine-man  to  the  Jumping 
Perfectionists;  but  deep-set  in  the  enduring  stuff  of 
man's  true  life.  We  must  believe  that  the  union  of 
this  life  with  supporting  Spirit  cannot  in  fact  be 
broken,  any  more  than  the  organic  unity  of  the  earth 
with  the  universe  as  a  whole.  But  the  extent  in 
which  we  find  and  feel  it  is  the  measure  of  the  full- 
ness of  spiritual  life  that  we  enjoy.     Organic  union 


22  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

must  be  lifted  to  conscious  realization:  and  this  to 
do,  is  the  business  of  religion.  In  this  act  of  reali- 
zation each  aspect  of  the  psychic  life — thought,  will 
and  feeling — must  have  its  part,  and  from  each  must 
be  evoked  a  response.  Only  in  so  far  as  such  all- 
round  realization  and  response  are  achieved  by  us 
do  we  live  the  spiritual  life.  We  do  it  perhaps  in 
some  degree,  every  time  that  we  surrender  to  pure 
beauty  or  unselfish  devotion;  for  then  all  but  the 
most  insensitive  must  be  conscious  of  an  unearthly 
touch,  and  hear  the  cadence  of  a  heavenly  melody. 
In  these  partial  experiences  something,  as  it  were, 
of  the  richness  of  Reality  overflows  and  is  expe- 
rienced by  us.  But  it  is  in  the  wholeness  of  response 
characteristic  of  religion — that  uncalculated  re- 
sponse to  stimulus  which  is  the  mark  of  the  instinc- 
tive life — that  this  Realty  of  love  and  power  is  most 
truly  found  and  felt  by  us.  In  this  generous  and 
heart-searching  surrender  of  religion,  rightly  made, 
the  self  achieves  inner  harmony,  and  finds  a  satis- 
fying objective  for  all  its  cravings  and  energies.  It 
then  finds  its  life,  and  the  possibilities  before  it,  to 
be  far  greater  than  it  knew. 

We  need  not  claim  that  those  men  and  women 
who  have  most  fully  realized,  and  so  at  first  hand 
have  described  to  us,  this  life  of  the  Spirit,  have  nei- 
ther discerned  or  communicated  the  ultimate  truth  of 
things:  nor  need  we  claim  that  the  symbols  they 
use  have  intrinsic  value,  beyond  the  poetic  power  of 
suggesting  to  us  the  quality  and  wonder  of  their 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        23 

transfigured  lives.  Still  less  must  we  claim  this  dis- 
covery as  the  monopoly  of  any  one  system  of  reli- 
gion. But  we  can  and  ought  to  claim,  that  no  sys- 
tem shall  be  held  satisfactory  which  does  not  find  a 
place  for  it:  and  that  only  in  so  far  as  we  at  least 
apprehend  and  respond  to  the  world's  spiritual  as- 
pect, do  we  approach  the  full  stature  of  humanity. 
Psychologists  at  present  are  much  concerned  to  en- 
treat us  to  "face  reality,"  discarding  idealism  along 
with  the  other  phantasies  that  haunt  the  race.  Yet 
this  facing  of  reality  can  hardly  be  complete  if  we 
do  not  face  the  facts  of  the  spiritual  life.  Certainly 
we  shall  find  it  most  difl^cult  to  interpret  these  facts; 
they  are  confused,  and  more  than  one  reading  of 
them  is  possible.  But  still  we  cannot  leave  them 
out  and  claim  to  have  "faced  reality." 

Hoffding  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  any  real  re- 
ligion implies  and  must  give  us  a  world-view.^ 
And  I  think  it  is  true  that  any  vividly  lived  spiritual 
life  must,  as  soon  as  it  passes  beyond  the  level  of 
mere  feelmg  and  involves  reflection,  involve  too 
some  more  or  less  articulated  conception  of  the 
spiritual  universe,  in  harmony  with  which  that  life  is 
to  be  lived.  This  may  be  given  to  us  by  authority, 
in  the  form  of  creed:  but  if  we  do  not  thus  receive 
it,  we  are  committed  to  the  building  of  our  own  City 
of  God.  And  to-day,  that  world-view,  that  spirit- 
ual landscape,  must  harmonize — if  it  is  needed  to 
help  our  living — with  the  outlook,  the  cosmic  map, 

1  Hoffding:   "Philosophy   of   Religion,"   Pt.    II,   A 


24  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

of  the  ordinary  man.  If  it  be  adequate,  it  will  in- 
evitably transcend  this;  but  must  not  be  in  hopeless 
conflict  with  it.  The  stretched-out,  graded,  striving 
world  of  biological  evolution,  the  many-faced  uni- 
verse of  the  physical  relativist,  the  space-time  mani- 
fold of  reahst  philosophy — these  great  constructions 
of  human  thought,  so  often  ignored  by  the  religious 
mind,  must  on  the  contrary  be  grasped,  and  accom- 
modated to  the  world-view  which  centres  on  the  God 
known  in  religious  experience.  They  are  true 
within  their  own  systems  of  reference;  and  the  soul 
demands  a  synthesis  wide  enough  to  contain  them. 

It  Is  true  that  most  religious  systems,  at  least  of 
the  traditional  type,  do  purport  to  give  us  a  world- 
view,  a  universe,  in  which  devotional  experience  is 
at  home  and  finds  an  objective  and  an  explanation. 
They  give  us  a  self-consistent  symbolic  world  in 
which  to  live.  But  it  is  a  world  which  Is  almost 
unrelated  to  the  universe  of  modern  physics,  and 
emerges  in  a  very  dishevelled  state  from  the  explo- 
rations of  history  and  of  psychology.  Even  con- 
trasted with  our  every-day  unresting  strenuous  life, 
it  Is  rather  like  a  conservatory  in  a  wilderness. 
Whilst  we   are   inside  everything   seems   all   right. 

Beauty  and  fragrance  surround  us.  But  emerg- 
ing from  its  doors,  we  find  ourselves  meeting  the 
cold  glances  of  those  who  deal  In  other  kinds  of 
reality;  and  discover  that  such  spiritual  life  as  we 
possess  has  got  to  accommodate  Itself  to  the  condi- 
tions in  which  they  live.     If  the  claim  of  religion  be 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        25 

true  at  all,  It  Is  plain  that  the  conservatory-type  of 
spiritual  world  is  inconsistent  with  it.  Imperfect 
though  any  conception  we  frame  of  the  universe 
must  be — and  here  we  may  keep  In  mind  Samuel 
Butler's  warning  that  "there  is  no  such  source  of 
error  as  the  pursuit  of  absolute  truth" — still,  a  view 
which  is  controlled  by  the  religious  factor  ought  to 
be,  so  to  speak,  a  hill-top  view.  Lifting  us  up  to 
higher  levels,  it  ought  to  give  us  a  larger  synthesis. 
Hence,  the  wider  the  span  of  experience  which  we 
are  able  to  bring  within  our  system,  the  more  valid 
its  claim  becomes:  and  the  setting  apart  of  spiritual 
experi'ence  in  a  special  compartment,  the  keeping  of 
It  under  glass,  Is  daily  becoming  less  possible. 
That  experience  Is  life  In  its  fullness,  or  nothing  at 
all.  Therefore  It  must  come  out  Into  the  open,  and 
must  witness  to  its  own  most  sacred  conviction; 
that  the  universe  as  a  whole  is  a  religious  fact,  and 
man  is  not  living  completely  until  he  Is  living  in  a 
world  religiously  conceived. 

More  and  more,  as  it  seems  to  me,  philosophy 
moves  toward  this  reading  of  existence.  The  re- 
volt from  the  last  century's  materialism  is  almost 
complete.  In  religious  language,  abstract  thought 
is  again  finding  and  feeling  God  within  the  world; 
and  finding  too  in  this  discovery  and  realization  the 
meanmg,  and  perhaps — if  we  may  dare  to  use  such 
a  word — the  purpose  of  life.  It  suggests — and 
here,  more  and  more,  psychology  supports  it — that, 
real  and  alive  as  we  are  in  relation  to  this  system 


26  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

with  which  we  find  ourselves  in  correspondence,  yet 
we  are  not  so  real,  nor  so  alive,  as  it  is  possible  to 
be.  The  characters  of  our  psychic  life  point  us  on 
and  up  to  other  levels.  Already  we  perceive  that 
man's  universe  is  no  fixed  order;  and  that  the  many 
ways  in  which  he  is  able  to  apprehend  it  are  earnests 
of  a  greater  transfiguration,  a  more  profound  con- 
tact with  reality  yet  possible  to  him.  Higher  forms 
of  realization,  a  wider  span  of  experience,  a  sharp- 
ening of  our  vague,  uncertain  consciousness  of  value 
— these  may  well  be  before  us.  We  have  to  re- 
member how  dim,  tentative,  half-understood  a  great 
deal  of  our  so-called  "normal"  experience  is:  how 
narrow  the  little  field  of  consciousness,  how  small 
the  number  of  impressions  it  picks  up  from  the  rich 
flux  of  existence,  how  subjective  the  picture  it  con- 
structs from  them.  To  take  only  one  obvious  ex- 
ample, artists  and  poets  have  given  us  plenty  of 
hints  that  a  real  beauty  and  significance  which  we 
seldom  notice  lie  at  our  very  doors;  and  forbid  us 
to  contradict  the  statement  of  religion  that  God  is 
standing   there   too. 

That  thought  which  inspires  the  last  chapters  of 
Professor  Alexander's  "Space,  Time,  and  Deity," 
that  the  universe  as  a  whole  has  a  tendency  towards 
deity,  does  at  least  seem  true  of  the  fully  awak- 
ened human  consciousness.^  Though  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  may  not  have  covered  all  the  facts  when 
he  called  man  a  contemplative  animal,  -  he  came 

1  Op.   cit.,  Bk.   4,   Cap.   i. 

2  "Summa  contra  Gentiles,"  L.  III.  Cap.  37. 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        27 

nearer  the  mark  than  more  modern  anthropol- 
ogists. Man  has  an  ineradicable  impulse  to  tran- 
scendence, though  sometimes — as  we  may  admit — 
it  is  expressed  in  strange  ways:  and  no  psychology 
which  fails  to  take  account  of  it  can  be  accepted  by 
us  as  complete.  He  has  a  craving  which  nothing 
in  his  material  surroundings  seems  adequate  either 
to  awaken  or  to  satisfy;  a  deep  conviction  that 
some  larger  synthesis  of  experience  is  possible  to 
him.  The  sense  that  we  are  not  yet  full  grown  has 
always  haunted  the  race.  "I  am  the  Food  of  the 
full-grown.  Grow,  and  thou  shalt  feed  on  Me!"  ^ 
said  the  voice  of  supreme  Reality  to  St.  Augustine. 
Here  we  seem  to  lay  our  finger  on  the  distinguishing 
mark  of  humanity:  that  in  man  the  titanic  craving 
for  a  fuller  life  and  love  which  is  characteristic  of 
all  living  things,  has  a  teleological  objective.  He 
alone  guesses  that  he  may  or  should  be  something 
other;  yet  cannot  guess  what  he  may  be.  And  from 
this  vague  sense  of  being  in  via,  the  restlessness  and 
discord  of  his  nature  proceed.  In  him,  the  on- 
ward thrust  of  the  world  of  becoming  achieves  self- 
consciousness. 

The  best  individuals  and  communities  of  each  age 
have  felt  this  craving  and  conviction;  and  obeyed, 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  its  persistent  onward 
push.  "The  seed  of  the  new  birth,"  says  William 
Law,  "is  not  a  notion,  but  a  real  strong  essential 
hunger,  an  attracting,  a  magnetic  desire.-    Over  and 

lAug:  Conf.  VII,  lo. 

2  "The  Liberal  and  Mystical  Writings  of  William  Law,"  p.  154. 


28  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

over  again,  rituals  have  dramatized  this  desire  and 
saints  have  surrendered  to  it.  The  history  of  re- 
ligion and  philosophy  is  really  the  history  of  the  pro- 
found human  belief  that  we  have  faculties  capable 
of  responding  to  orders  of  truth  which,  did  we  ap- 
prehend them,  would  change  the  whole  character  of 
our  universe;  showing  us  reality  from  another  an- 
gle, lit  by  another  light.  And  time  after  time  too 
— as  we  shall  see,  when  we  come  to  consider  the 
testimony  of  history — favourable  variations  have 
arisen  within  the  race  and  proved  in  their  own 
persons  that  this  claim  is  true.  Often  at  the  cost  of 
great  pain,  sacrifice,  and  inward  conflict  they  have 
broken  their  attachments  to  the  narrow  world  of 
the  senses:  and  this  act  of  detachment  has  been  re- 
paid by  a  new,  more  lucid  vision,  and  a  mighty  in- 
flow of  power.  The  principle  of  degrees  assures 
us  that  such  changed  levels  of  consciousness  and 
angles  of  approach  may  well  involve  introduc- 
tion into  a  universe  of  new  relations,  which  we  are 
not  competent  to  criticize.^  This  is  a  truth  which 
should  make  us  humble  in  our  efforts  to  understand 
the  difficult  and  too  often  paradoxical  utterances  of 
religious  genius.  It  suggests  that  the  puzzlings  of 
philosophers  and  theologians — and,  I  may  add,  of 
psychologists  too — over  experiences  which  they 
have  not  shared,  are  not  of  great  authority  for  those 
whose  object  is  to  find  the  secret  of  the  Spirit,  and 
make  it  useful  for  life.  Here,  the  only  witnesses 
we  can  receive  are,  on  the  one  part,  the  first-hand 

1  Cf.  Haldane,  "The  Reign  of  Relativity,"  Cap.  VI. 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        29 

witnesses  of  experience,  and  on  the  other  part,  our 
own  profound  instinct  that  these  are  telling  us  news 
of  our  native  land. 

Baron  von  Hiigel  has  finely  said,  that  the'  facts  of 
this  spiritual  life  are  themselves  the  earnests  of  its 
objective.  These  facts  cannot  be  explained  merely 
as  man's  share  in  the  cosmic  movement  towards  a 
yet  unrealized  perfection;  such  as  the  unachieved 
and  self-evolving  Divinity  of  some  realist  philoso- 
phers. "For  we  have  no  other  instance  of  an  un- 
realized perfection  producing  such  pain  and  joy, 
such  volitions,  such  endlessly  varied  and  real  re- 
sults; and  all  by  means  of  just  this  vivid  and  persist- 
ent impression  that  this  Becoming  is  an  already  re- 
alized Perfection."  ^  Therefore  though  the  irresist- 
ible urge  and  the  effort  forward,  experienced  on  high- 
est levels  of  love  and  service,  are  plainly  one-half 
of  the  life  of  the  Spirit — which  can  never  be  consis- 
tent with  a  pious  indolence,  an  acceptance  of  things 
as  they  are,  either  in  the  social  or  the  individual  life 
— yet,  the  other  half,  and  the  very  inspiration  of 
that  striving,  is  this  certitude  of  an  untarnishable 
Perfection,  a  great  goal  really  there;  a  living  God 
Who  draws  all  spirits  to  Himself.  "Our  quest," 
said  Plotinus,  "is  of  an  End,  not  of  ends:  for  that 
only  can  be  chosen  by  us  which  is  ultimate  and 
noblest,  that  which  calls  forth  the  tenderest  long- 
ings of  our  soul."  ^ 

iVon  Hugel:  "Eternal  Life,"  p.  385. 
2  Ennead  I.  4.  6. 


30  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

There  is  of  course  a  sense  In  which  such  a  life 
of  the  Spirit  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and  for 
ever.  Even  if  we  consider  it  in  relation  to  historical 
time,  the  span  within  which  it  has  appeared  is  so 
short,  compared  with  the  ages  of  human  evolution, 
that  we  may  as  well  regard  it  as  still  in  the  stage 
of  undifferentiated  infancy.  Yet  even  babies  change, 
and  change  quickly,  in  their  relations  with  the  ex- 
ternal world.  And  though  the  universe  with  which 
man's  childish  spirit  is  in  contact  be  a  world  of  en- 
during values;  yet,  placed  as  we  are  in  the  stream 
of  succession,  part  of  the  stuff  of  a  changing  world 
and  linked  at  every  point  with  it,  our  apprehensions 
of  this  life  of  spirit,  the  symbols  we  use  to  describe 
it — and  we  must  use  symbols — must  inevitably 
change  too.  Therefore  from  time  to  time  some 
restatement  becomes  imperative,  if  actuality  is  not 
to  be  lost.  Whatever  God  meant  man  to  do  or  to 
be,  the  whole  universe  assures  us  that  He  did  not 
mean  him  to  stand  still.  Such  a  restatement,  then, 
may  reasonably  be  called  a  truly  religious  work: 
and  I  believe  that  it  is  indeed  one  of  the  chief 
works  to  which  religion  must  find  itself  committed 
in  the  near  future.  Hence  my  main  object  in  this 
book  is  to  recommend  the  consideration  of  this 
enduring  fact  of  the  life  of  the  Spirit  and  what 
it  can  mean  to  us,  from  various  points  of  view; 
thus  helping  to  prepare  the  ground  for  that  new 
synthesis  which  we  may  not  yet  be  able  to  achieve, 
but  towards  which  we  ought  to  look.     It  is  from 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        31 

this  stand-point,  and  with  this  object  of  examining 
what  we  have,  of  sorting  out  if  we  can  the  per- 
manent from  the  transitory,  of  noticing  lacks  and 
bridging  cleavages,  that  we  shall  consider  in  turn 
the  testimony  of  history,  the  position  in  respect  of 
psychology,  and  the  institutional  personal  and  social 
aspects  of  the  spiritual  life. 

In  such  a  restatement,  such  a  reference  back  to 
actual  man,  here  at  the  present  day  as  we  have 
him — such  a  demand  for  a  spiritual  interpretation 
of  the  universe,  which  will  allow  us  to  fit  in  all  his 
many-levelled  experiences — I  believe  we  have  the 
way  of  approach  to  which  religion  to-day  must 
look  as  its  best  hope.  Thus  only  can  we  conquer 
that  museum-like  atmosphere  of  much  traditional 
piety  which — agreeable  as  it  may  be  to  the  historic 
or  aesthetic  sense — makes  it  so  unreal  to  our  work- 
ers, no  less  than  to  our  students.  Such  a  method, 
too,  will  mean  the  tightening  of  that  alliance  be- 
tween philosophy  and  psychology  which  is  already 
a  marked  character  of  contemporary  thought. 

And  note  that,  working  on  this  basis,  we  need 
not  in  order  to  find  room  for  the  facts  commit  our- 
selves to  the  harsh  dualism,  the  opposition  between 
nature  and  spirit,  which  is  characteristic  of  some 
earlier  forms  of  Christian  thought.  In  this  dualism, 
too,  we  find  simply  an  effort  to  describe  felt  ex- 
perience. It  is  an  expression  of  the  fact,  so  strongly 
and  deeply  felt  by  the  richest  natures,  that  there  is 
an  utter  difference  in  kind  between  the  natural  life  of 


32  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

use  and  wont,  as  most  of  us  live  it,  and  the  life  that 
is  dominated  by  the  spiritual  consciousness.  The 
change  is  indeed  so  great,  the  transfiguration  so  com- 
plete, that  they  seize  on  the  strongest  language  in 
which  to  state  it.  And  in  the  good  old  human 
way,  referring  their  own  feelings  to  the  universe, 
they  speak  of  the  opposing  and  incompatible  worlds 
of  matter  and  of  spirit,  of  nature  and  of  grace. 
But  those  who  have  most  deeply  reflected,  have  per- 
ceived that  the  change  effected  is  not  a  change  of 
worlds.  It  is  rather  such  a  change  of  temper  and 
attitude  as  will  disclose  within  our  one  world,  here 
and  now,  the  one  Spirit  in  the  diversity  of  His 
gifts;  the  one  Love,  in  homeliest  incidents  as  well 
as  noblest  vision,  laying  its  obligations  on  the  soul; 
and  so  the  true  nature  and  full  possibilities  of 
this   our  present   life. 

Although  it  is  true  that  we  must  register  our  pro- 
found sense  of  the  transcendental  character  of  this 
spirit-life,  its  otherness  from  mere  nature,  and  the 
humility  and  penitence  in  which  alone  mere  nature 
can  receive  it;  yet  I  think  that  our  movement  from 
one  to  the  other  is  more  naturally  described  by  us  in 
the  language  of  growth  than  in  the  language  of 
convulsion.  The  primal  object  of  religion  is  to  dis- 
close to  us  this  perdurable  basis  of  life,  and  foster 
our  growth  into  communion  with  it.  And  whatever 
its  special  language  and  personal  colour  may  be — 
for  all  our  news  of  God  comes  to  us  through  the 
consciousness  of  individual  men,  and  arrives  tine- 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        33 

tured  by  their  feelings  and  beliefs — in  the  end  it 
does  this  by  disclosing  us  to  ourselves  as  spirits 
growing  up,  though  unevenly  and  hampered  by  our 
past,  through  the  physical  order  into  completeness  of 
response  to  a  universe  that  is  itself  a  spiritual  fact. 
"Heaven,"  said  Jacob  Boehme,  "is  nothing  else  but 
a  manifestation  of  the  Eternal  One,  wherein  all 
worketh  and  willeth  in  quiet  love."  ^  Such  a  man- 
ifestation of  Spirit  must  clearly  be  made  through 
humanity,  at  least  so  far  as  our  own  order  is  con- 
cerned: by  our  redirection  and  full  use  of  that  spirit 
of  life  which  energizes  us,  and  which,  emerging  from 
the  more  primitive  levels  of  organic  creation,  is  ours 
to  carry  on  and  up — either  to  new  self-satisfactions, 
or  to  new  consecrations. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  insist  that  the  need 
for  such  a  redirection  has  never  been  more  strongly 
felt  than  at  the  present  day.  There  is  indeed  no 
period  in  which  history  exhibits  mankind  as  at  once 
more  active,  more  feverishly  self-conscious,  and 
more  distracted,  than  is  our  own  bewildered  gen- 
eration; nor  any  which  stood  in  greater  need  of 
Blake's  exhortation:  "Let  every  Christian  as  much 
as  in  him  lies,  engage  himself  openly  and  publicly  be- 
fore all  the  World  in  some  Mental  pursuit  for  the 
Building  up  of  Jerusalem."  ^ 

How  many  people  do  each  of  us  know  who  work 
and  will  in  quiet  love,  and  thus  participate  in  eternal 
life? 

1  Boehme:  "The  Way  to  Christ,"  Pt.  IV. 

2  Blake:  "Jerusalem":  To  the  Christians. 


34  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

Consider  the  weight  of  each  of  these  words. 
The  energy,  the  clear  purpose,  the  deep  calm,  the 
warm  charity  they  imply.  Willed  work,  not 
grudging  toil.  Quiet  love,  not  feverish  emo- 
tionalism. Each  term  is  quite  plain  and  human, 
and  each  has  equal  importance  as  an  attribute  of 
heavenly  life.  How  many  politicians — the  people 
to  whom  we  have  confided  the  control  of  our 
national  existence — work  and  will  in  quiet  lovei? 
What  about  industry?  Do  the  masters,  or  the 
workers,  work  and  will  in  quiet  love?  that  is  to  say, 
with  diligence  and  faithful  purpose,  without  selfish 
anxiety,  without  selfish  demands  and  hostilities? 
What  about  the  hurried,  ugly  and  devitalizing  ex- 
istence of  our  big  towns?  Can  we  honestly  say 
that  young  people  reared  in  them  are  likely  to 
acquire  this  temper  of  heaven?  Yet  we  have  been 
given  the  secret,  the  law  of  spiritual  life;  and 
psychologists  would  agree  that  it  represents  too  the 
most  favourable  of  conditions  for  a  full  psychic 
life,  the  state  in  which  we  have  access  to  all  our 
sources  of  power. 

But  man  will  not  achieve  this  state  unless  he 
dwells  on  the  idea  of  it;  and,  dwelling  on  that  idea, 
opening  his  mind  to  its  suggestions,  brings  its  modes 
of  expression  into  harmony  with  his  thought  about 
the  world  of  daily  life.  Our  spiritual  life  to-day, 
such  as  it  is,  tends  above  all  to  express  itself  in  social 
activities.  Teacher  after  teacher  comes  forward  to 
plume    himself  on  the  fact  that  Christianity  is  now 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        35 

taking  a  "social  form";  that  love  of  our  neighbour 
is  not  so  much  the  corollary  as  the  equivalent  of  the 
love  of  God,  and  so  forth.  Here  I  am  sure  that 
all  can  supply  themselves  with  illustrative  quota- 
tions. Yet  is  there  in  this  state  of  things  nothing 
but  food  for  congratulation?  Is  such  a  view  com- 
plete? Is  nothing  left  out?  Have  we  not  lost  the 
wonder  and  poetry  of  the  forest  in  our  diligent 
cultivation  of  the  economically  valuable  trees;  and 
shall  we  ever  see  life  truly  until  we  see  it  with  the 
poet's  eyes?  There  is  so  much  meritorious  working 
and  willing;  and  so  little  time  left  for  quiet  love.  A 
spiritual  fussiness — often  a  material  fussiness  too — 
seems  to  be  taking  the  place  of  that  inward  resort  to 
the  fontal  sources  of  our  being  which  is  the  true 
religious  act,  our  chance  of  contact  with  the  Spirit. 
This  compensating  beat  of  the  fully  lived  human 
life,  that  whole  side  of  existence  resumed  in  the  word 
contemplation,  has  been  left  out.  "All  the  artillery 
of  the  world,"  said  John  Everard,  "were  they  all 
discharged  together  at  one  clap,  could  not  more 
deaf  the  ears  of  our  bodies  than  the  clamourings  of 
desires  in  the  soul  deaf  its  ears,  so  you  see  a  man 
must  go  into  the  silence,  or  else  he  cannot  hear  God 
speak."  ^  And  until  we  remodel  our  current  concep- 
tion of  the  Christian  life  in  such  a  sense  as  to  give 
that  silence  and  its  revelation  their  full  value,  I  do 
not  think  that  we  can  hope  to  exhibit  the  triumphing 
power  of  the  Spirit  in  human  character  and  human 

1  "Some  Gospel  Treasures  Opened,"  p.  600. 


36  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

society.  Our  whole  notion  of  life  at  present  Is  such 
as  to  set  up  resistances  to  its  inflow.  Yet  the  inner 
mood,  the  consciousness,  which  makes  of  the  self  its 
channel,  are  accessible  to  all,  if  we  would  but  believe 
this  and  act  on  our  belief.  "Worship,"  said 
William  Penn,  "Is  the  supreme  act  of  a  man's  life."  ^ 
And  what  Is  worship  but  a  reach-out  of  the  finite 
spirit  towards  Infinite  Life?  Here  thought  must 
mend  the  breach  which  thought  has  made :  for  the 
root  of  our  trouble  consists  in  the  fact  that  there  is 
a  fracture  in  our  conception  of  God  and  of  our  rela- 
tion with  Him.  We  do  not  perceive  the  "hidden 
unity  in  the  Eternal  Being";  the  single  nature  and 
purpose  of  that  Spirit  which  brought  life  forth,  and 
shall  lead  it  to  full  realization. 

Here  is  our  little  planet,  chiefly  occupied,  to  our 
view,  in  rushing  round  the  sun;  but  perhaps  found 
from  another  angle  to  fill  quite  another  part  In  the 
cosmic  scheme.  And  on  this  apparently  unimpor- 
tant speck,  wandering  among  systems  of  suns,  the  ap- 
pearance of  life  and  Its  slow  development  and  ever- 
increasing  sensitization;  the  emerging  of  pain  and 
of  pleasure;  and  presently  man  with  his  growing 
capacity  for  self-affirmation  and  self-sacrifice,  for 
rapture  and  for  grief.  Love  with  its  unearthly  hap- 
piness, unmeasured  devotion,  and  limitless  pain;  all 
the  ecstasy,  all  the  anguish  that  we  extract  from  the 
rhythm  of  life  and  death.  It  is  much,  really,  for 
one  little  planet  to  bring  to  birth.     And  presently 

1  William  Penn,  "No  Cross,  No  Crown." 


THE  CHARACTERS  OF  SPIRITUAL  LIFE        37 

another  music,  which  some — not  many  perhaps  yet, 
in  comparison  with  its  population — are  able  to 
hear.  The  music  of  a  more  inward  life,  a  sort  of 
fugue  in  which  the  eternal  and  temporal  are  min- 
gled; and  here  and  there  some,  already,  who 
respond  to  it.  Those  who  hear  it  would  not  all 
agree  as  to  the  nature  of  the  melody;  but  all  would 
agree  that  it  is  something  different  in  kind  from  the 
rhythm  of  life  and  death.  And  in  their  surrender 
to  this — to  which,  as  they  feel  sure,  the  physical  or- 
der too  is  really  keeping  time — they  taste  a  larger 
life;  more  universal,  more  divine.  As  Plotinus 
said,  they  are  looking  at  the  Conductor  in  the  midst; 
and,  keeping  time  with  Him,  find  the  fulfilment  both 
of  their  striving  and  of  their  peace. 


CHAPTER  II 

HISTORY  AND   THE    LIFE   OF   THE   SPIRIT 

We  have  already  agreed  that,  if  we  wish  to  grasp 
the  real  character  of  spiritual  life,  we  must  avoid 
the  temptation  to  look  at  it  as  merely  a  historical 
subject.  If  it  is  what  it  claims  to  be,  it  is  a  form 
of  eternal  life,  as  constant,  as  accessible  to  us  here 
and  now,  as  in  any  so-called  age  of  faith:  therefore 
of  actual  and  present  importance,  or  else  nothing  at 
all.  This  is  why  I  think  that  the  approach  to  it 
through  philosophy  and  psychology  is  so  much  to  be 
preferred  to  the  approach  through  pure  history. 
Yet  there  is  a  sense  in  which  we  must  not  neglect 
such  history;  for  here,  if  we  try  to  enter  by  sympa- 
thy into  the  past,  we  can  see  the  life  of  the  Spirit 
emerging  and  being  lived  in  all  degrees  of  perfection 
and  under  many  different  forms.  Here,  through 
and  behind  the  immense  diversity  of  temperaments 
which  it  has  transfigured,  we  can  best  realize  its  uni- 
form and  enduring  character;  and  therefore  our 
own  possibility  of  attaining  to  it,  and  the  way  that 
we  must  tread  so  to  do.  History  does  not  exhort  us 
or  explain  to  us,  but  exhibits  living  specimens  to  us; 
and  tiicse  specimens  witness  again  and  again  to  the 
fact  that  a  compelling  power  does  exist  in  the  world 

38 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        39 

— little  understood,  even  by  those  who  are  inspired 
by  it — which  presses  men  to  transcend  their  mate- 
rial limitations  and  mental  conflicts,  and  live  a  new 
creative  life  of  harmony,  freedom  and  joy.  Di- 
rectly human  character  emerges  as  one  of  man's 
prime  interests,  this  possibility  emerges  too,  and  is 
never  lost  sight  of  again.  Hindu,  Buddhist, 
Egyptian,  Greek,  Alexandrian,  Moslem  and  Chris- 
tian all  declare  with  more  or  less  completeness  a  way 
of  life,  a  path,  a  curve  of  development  which  shall 
end  in  its  attainment;  and  history  brings  us  face  to 
face  with  the  real  and  human  men  and  women  who 
have  followed  this  way,  and  found  its  promise  to  be 
true. 

It  is,  indeed,  of  supreme  importance  to  us  that 
these  men  and  women  did  truly  and  actually  thus 
grow,  suffer  and  attain:  did  so  feel  the  pressure  of 
a  more  intense  life,  and  the  demand  of  a  more 
authentic  love.  Their  adventures,  whatsoever  ad- 
dition legend  may  have  made  to  them,  belong  at  bot- 
tom to  the  realm  of  fact,  of  realistic  happening,  not 
of  phantasy:  and  therefore  speak  not  merely  to  our 
imagination  but  to  our  will.  Unless  the  spiritual 
life  were  thus  a  part  of  history,  it  could  only  have 
for  us  the  interest  of  a  noble  dream :  an  interest  ac- 
tually less  than  that  of  great  poetry,  for  this  has  at 
least  been  given  to  us  by  man's  hard  passionate  work 
of  expressing  in  concrete  image — and  ever  the  more 
concrete,  the  greater  his  art — the  results  of  his  tran- 
scendental contacts  with  Beauty,   Power  or  Love. 


40  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIFJT 

Thus,  as  the  tracking-out  of  a  concrete  life,  a  Man, 
from  Nazareth  to  Calvary,  made  of  Christianity  a 
veritable  human  revelation  of  God  and  not  a 
Gnostic  answer  to  the  riddle  of  the  soul;  so  the 
real  and  solid  men  and  women  of  the  Spirit — eating, 
drinking,  working,  suffering,  loving,  each  in  the  ci?-- 
cumstances  of  their  own  time — are  the  earnests  cf 
otir  own  latent  destiny  and  powers,  the  ability  of 
the  Christian  to  "grow  taller  in  Christ."  ^  These 
powers — that  ability — are  factually  present  in  the 
race,  and  are  totally  independent  of  the  specific 
religious  system  which  may  best  awaken,  nourish, 
and  cause  them  to  grow. 

In  order,  then,  that  we  may  be  from  the  first 
clear  of  all  suspicion  of  vague  romancing  about  in- 
definite types  of  perfection  and  keep  tight  hold  on 
concrete  life,  let  us  try  to  re-enter  history,  and  look 
at  the  quality  of  life  exhibited  by  some  of  these 
great  examples  of  dynamic  spirituality,  and  the 
movements  which  they  initiated.  It  is  true  that 
we  can  only  select  from  among  them,  but  we  will 
try  to  keep  to  those  who  have  followed  on  highest 
levels  a  normal  course ;  the  upstanding  types,  varying 
much  in  temperament  but  little  in  aim  and  achieve- 
ment, of  that  form  of  life  which  is  re-made  and 
controlled  by  the  Spirit,  entinctured  with  Eternal 
Life.  If  such  a  use  of  history  is  indeed  to  be 
educative  for  us,  we  must  avoid  the  conventional 
view  of  it,  as  a  mere  chronicle  of  past  events;  and 

1  Everard,  "Some  Gospel  Treasures  Opened,"  p.   555. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        41 

of  historic  personalities  as  stuffed  specimens  ex- 
hibited against  a  flat  tapestried  background,  more 
or  less  picturesque,  but  always  thought  of  in  op- 
position to  the  concrete  thickness  of  the  modern 
world.  We  are  not  to  think  of  spiritual  epochs 
now  closed;  of  ages  of  faith  utterly  separated  from 
us;  of  saints  as  some  peculiar  species,  God's  pet 
animals,  living  in  an  incense-laden  atmosphere  and 
less  vividly  human  and  various  than  ourselves. 
Such  conceptions  are  empty  of  historical  content  in 
the  philosophic  sense;  and  when  we  are  dealing 
with  the  accredited  heroes  of  the  Spirit — that  is 
to  say,  with  the  Saints — they  are  particularly  com- 
mon and  particularly  poisonous.  As  Benedetto 
Croce  has  observed,  the  very  condition  of  the  exist- 
tence  of  real  history  is  that  the  deed  celebrated  must 
live  and  be  present  in  the  soul  of  the  historian; 
must  be  emotionally  realized  by  him  now,  as  a 
concrete  fact  weighted  with  significance.  It  must 
answer  to  a  present,  not  to  a  past  interest  of  the  race, 
for  thus  alone  can  it  convey  to  us  some  knowledge 
of  its  inward  truth. 

Consider  from  this  point  of  view  the  case  of 
Richard  Rolle,  who  has  been  called  the  father  of 
English  mysticism.  It  is  easy  enough  for  those 
who  regard  spiritual  history  as  dead  chronicle  and 
its  subjects  as  something  different  from  ourselves, 
to  look  upon  Rolle's  threefold  experience  of  the 
soul's  reaction  to  God — the  heat  of  his  quick  love, 
the  sweetness  of  his  spiritual  intercourse,  the  joyous 


42  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

melody  with  which  it  filled  his  austere,  self-giving 
life  ^ — as  the  probable  result  of  the  reaction  of  a 
neurotic  temperament  to  mediaeval  traditions.  But 
if,  for  instance  the  Oxford  undergraduate  of  to- 
day realizes  Rolle,  not  as  a  picturesque  fourteenth- 
century  hermit,  but  as  a  fellow-student — another 
Oxford  undergraduate,  separated  from  him  only  by 
an  interval  of  time — who  gave  up  that  university 
and  the  career  it  could  offer  him,  under  the  com- 
pulsion of  another  Wisdom  and  another  Love,  then 
he  re-enters  the  living  past.  If,  standing  by  him  in 
that  small  hut  in  the  Yorkshire  wolds,  from  which 
the  urgent  message  of  new  life  spread  through  the 
north  of  England,  he  hears  Rolle  saying  "Nought 
more  profitable,  nought  merrier  than  grace  of  con- 
templation, the  which  lifteth  us  from  low  things  and 
presenteth  us  to  God.  What  thing  is  grace  but  be- 
ginning of  joy?  And  what  is  perfection  of  joy  but 
grace  complete?"  ^ — if,  I  say,  he  so  re-enters  his- 
tory that  he  can  hear  this  as  Rolle  meant  it,  not 
as  a  poetic  phrase  but  as  a  living  fact,  indeed  life's 
very  secret — then,  his  heart  may  be  touched  and 
he  may  begin  to  understand.  And  then  it  may 
occur  to  him  that  this  ardour,  and  the  sacrifice  it 
impelled,  the  hard  life  which  it  supported,  witness 
to  another  level  of  being;  reprove  his  own  languor 
and  comfort,  his  contentment  with  a  merely  phys- 
ical and  mental  life,  and  are  not  wholly  to  be  ac- 

^  Conor  Dulcor,  Canor;  cf.  Rolle:   "The   Fire  of  Love,"  Bk.   I, 
Cap.    14. 

^  Rolle:  "The  Mending  of  Life,"  Cap.  XII. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        43 

counted  for  in  terms  of  superstition  or  of  pathology. 

When  the  living  spirit  in  us  thus  meets  the  living 
spirit  of  the  past,  our  time-span  is  enlarged,  and 
history  is  born  and  becomes  contemporary;  thus 
both  widening  and  deepening  our  vital  experience. 
It  then  becomes  not  only  a  real  mode  of  life  to  us; 
but  more  than  this,  a  mode  of  social  life.  Indeed, 
we  can  hardly  hope  without  this  re-entrance  into 
the  time  stream  to  achieve  by  ourselves,  and 
in  defiance  of  tradition,  a  true  integration  of  exist- 
ence. Thus  to  defy  tradition  is  to  refuse  all  the 
gifts  the  past  can  make  to  us,  and  cut  ourselves  off 
from  the  cumulative  experiences  of  the  race.  The 
Spirit,  as  Croce  ^  reminds  us,  is  history,  makes  his- 
tory, and  is  also  itself  the  living  result  of  all  pre- 
ceding history;  since  Becoming  is  the  essential  reality, 
the  creative  formula,  of  that  life  in  which  we  find 
ourselves  immersed. 

It  is  from  such  an  angle  as  this  that  I  wish  to 
approach  the  historical  aspect  of  the  life  of  Spirit; 
re-entering  the  past  by  sympathetic  imagination, 
refusing  to  be  misled  by  superficial  characteristics, 
but  seeking  the  concrete  factors  of  the  regenerate 
life,  the  features  which  persist  and  have  significance 
for  it — getting,  if  we  can,  face  to  face  with  those 
intensely  living  men  and  women  who  have  mani- 
fested it.  This  is  not  easy.  In  studying  all  such 
experience,  we  have  to  remember  that  the  men  and 
women  of  the  Spirit  are  members  of  two  orders. 

1  Benedetto    Croce:    "Theory    and    History    of    Historiography," 
trans,  by  Douglas  Ainslie,  p.  25. 


44  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

They  have  attachments  both  to  time  and  to  eternity. 
Their  characteristic  experiences  indeed  are  non- 
temporal,  but  their  feet  are  on  the  earth;  the  earth 
of  their  own  day.  Therefore  two  factors  will  in- 
evitably appear  in  those  experiences,  one  due  to 
tradition,  the  other  to  the  free  movements  of  crea- 
tive life:  and  we,  if  we  would  understand,  must  dis- 
criminate between  them.  In  this  power  of  taking 
from  the  past  and  pushing  on  to  the  future,  the  bal- 
ance maintained  between  stability  and  novelty,  we 
find  one  of  their  abiding  characteristics.  When  this 
balance  is  broken — when  there  is  either  too  complete 
a  submission  to  tradition  and  authority,  or  too  vi- 
olent a  rejection  of  it — full  greatness  is  not  achieved. 

In  complete  lives,  the  two  things  overlap:  and 
so  perfectly  that  no  sharp  distinction  is  made  be- 
tween the  gifts  of  authority  and  of  fresh  experience. 
Traditional  formula,  as  we  all  know,  are  often  used 
because  they  are  found  to  tally  with  life,  to  light 
up  dark  corners  of  our  own  spirits  and  give  names 
to  experiences  which  we  want  to  define.  Ceremonial 
deeds  are  used  to  actualize  free  contacts  with  Real- 
ity. And  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  they  can 
do  this;  since  tradition  represents  the  crystallization, 
and  handing  on  under  symbols,  of  all  the  spiritual 
experiences  of  the  race. 

Therefore  the  man  or  woman  of  the  Spirit  will 
always  accept  and  use  somef  tradition;  and  unless  he 
does  so,  he  is  not  of  much  use  to  his  fellow-men. 
He  must  not,  then,  be  discredited  on  account  of  the 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        45 

symbolic  system  he  adopts;  but  must  be  allowed 
to  tell  his  news  in  his  own  way.  We  must  not 
refuse  to  find  reality  within  the  Hindu's  account 
of  his  joyous  life-giving  communion  with  Ram,  any 
more  than  we  refuse  to  find  it  within  the  Christian's 
description  of  his  personal  converse  with  Christ. 
We  must  not  discredit  the  assurance  which  comes 
to  the  devout  Buddhist  who  faithfully  follows  the 
Middle  Way,  or  deny  that  Pagan  sacramentallsm 
was  to  Its  initiates  a  channel  of  grace.  For  all  these 
are  children  of  tradition,  occupy  a  given  place  In  the 
stream  of  history;  and  commonly  they  are  better, 
not  worse,  for  accepting  this  fact  with  all  that  it 
Involves.  And  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  shall  see 
when  we  come  to  discuss  the  laws  of  suggestion  and 
the  function  of  belief,  the  weight  of  tradition  presses 
the  loyal  and  humble  soul  which  accepts  It,  to  such 
an  Interpretation  of  its  own  spiritual  intuitions  as 
its  Church,  Its  creed,  its  environment  give  to  it. 
Thus  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa,  St.  Teresa,  even 
Ruysbroeck,  are  able  to  describe  their  intuitive  com- 
munion with  God  in  strictly  Catholic  terms;  and  by 
so  doing  renew,  enrich  and  explicate  the  content  of 
those  terms  for  those  who  follow  them.  Those 
who  could  not  harmonize  their  own  vision  of  reality 
with  the  current  formulas — Fox,  Wesley  or  Blake, 
driven  into  opposition  by  the  sterility  of  the  con- 
temporary Church — were  forced  to  find  elsewhere 
some  tradition  through  which  to  maintain  contact 
with  the  past.     Fox  found  it  In  the  Bible;  Wesley 


46  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

in  patristic  Christianity.  Even  Blake's  prophetic 
system,  when  closely  examined,  is  found  to  have 
many  historic  and  Christian  connections.  And  all 
these  regarded  themselves  far  less  as  bringers-in 
of  novelty,  than  as  restorers  of  lost  truth.  So  we 
must  be  prepared  to  discriminate  the  element  of 
novelty  from  the  element  of  stability;  the  reality  of 
the  intuition,  the  curve  of  growth,  the  moral  situa- 
tion, from  the  traditional  and  often  symbolic  lan- 
guage in  which  it  is  given  to  us.  The  comparative 
method  helps  us  towards  this;  and  is  thus  not,  as 
some  would  pretend,  the  servant  of  scepticism,  but 
rightly  used  the  revealer  of  the  Spirit  of  Life  in  its 
variety  of  gifts.  In  this  connection  we  might  re- 
member that  time — like  space — is  only  of  secondary 
importance  to  us.  Compared  with  the  eons  of 
preparation,  the  millions  of  years  of  our  animal 
and  sub-human  existence,  the  life  of  the  Spirit  as  it 
appears  in  human  history  might  well  be  regarded 
as  simultaneous  rather  than  successive.  We  may 
borrow  the  imagery  of  Donne's  great  discourse  on 
Eternity  and  say,  that  those  heroic  livers  of  the 
spiritual  life  whom  we  idly  class  in  comparison  with 
ourselves  as  antique,  or  mediseval  men,  were  "but 
as  a  bed  of  flowers  some  gathered  at  six,  some  at 
seven,  some  at  eight — all  in  one  morning  in  respect 
of  this  day."  ^ 

Such  a  view  brings  them  more  near  to  us,  helps 
us  to  neglect  mere  differences  of  language  and  ap- 

1  "Donne's  Sermons,"   p.  236. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        47 

pearance,  and  grasp  the  warmly  living  and  con- 
temporary character  of  all  historic  truth.  It  pre- 
serves us,  too,  from  the  common  error  of  discrimin- 
ating between  so-called  "ages  of  faith"  and  our  own. 
The  more  we  study  the  past,  the  more  clearly  we 
recognize  that  there  are  no  "ages  of  faith."  Such 
labels  merely  represent  the  arbitrary  cuts  which  we 
make  in  the  time-stream,  the  arbitrary  colours  which 
we  give  to  it.  The  spiritual  man  or  woman  is  al- 
ways fundamentally  the  same  kind  of  man  or 
woman;  always  reaching  out  with  the  same  faith 
and  love  towards  the  heart  of  the  same  universe, 
though  telling  that  faith  and  love  in  various  tongues. 
He  is  far  less  the  child  of  his  time,  than  the 
transformer  of  it.  His  this-world  business  is  to 
bring  in  novelty,  new  reality,  fresh  life.  Yet,  com- 
ing to  fulfil  not  to  destroy,  he  uses  for  this  purpose 
the  traditions,  creeds,  even  the  institutions  of  his 
day.  But  when  he  has  done  with  them,  they  do  not 
look  the  same  as  they  did  before.  Christ  himself 
has  been  well  called  a  Constructive  Revolutionary,^ 
yet  each  single  element  of  His  teaching  can  be  found 
in  Jewish  tradition;  and  the  noblest  of  His  followers 
have  the  same  character.  Thus  St.  Francis  of  As- 
sisi  only  sought  consistently  to  apply  the  teaching  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  St,  Teresa  that  of  the 
Carmelite  Rule.  Every  element  of  Wesleyanism  is 
to  be  found  in  primitive  Christianity;  and  Wesleyan- 
ism is  itself  the  tradition  from  which  the  new  vigour 

1  B.  H.  Streeter,  in  "The  Spirit,"  p.  349  seq. 


4S  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

of  the  Salvation  Army  sprang.  The  great  regen- 
erators of  history  are  always  in  fundamental  op- 
position to  the  common  life  of  their  day,  for  they 
demand  by  their  very  existence  a  return  to  first 
principles,  a  revolution  in  the  ways  of  thinking  and 
of  acting  common  among  men,  a  heroic  consistency 
and  single-mlndedness :  but  they  can  use  for  their 
own  fresh  constructions  and  contacts  with  Eternal 
Life  the  material  which  this  life  offers  to  them. 
The  experiments  of  St.  Benedict,  St.  Francis,  Fox 
or  Wesley,  were  not  therefore  the  natural  products 
of  ages  of  faith.  They  each  represented  the  revolt 
of  a  heroic  soul  against  surrounding  apathy  and 
decadence;  an  invasion  of  novelty;  a  sharp  break 
with  society,  a  new  use  of  antique  tradition  depend- 
ing on  new  contacts  with  the  Spirit.  Greatness  Is 
seldom  in  harmony  with  its  own  epoch,  and  spiritual 
greatness  least  of  all.  It  is  usually  startlingly  mod- 
ern, even  eccentric  at  the  time  at  which  it  appears. 
We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  "The  Imitation  of 
Christ"  as  the  classic  expression  of  mediaeval  spiritu- 
ality. But  when  Thomas  a  Kempis  wrote  his  book, 
it  was  the  manifesto  of  that  which  was  called  the 
Modern  Devotion;  and  represented  a  new  attempt 
to  live  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  in  opposition  to  sur- 
rounding apathy. 

.When  we  re-enter  the  past,  what  we  find  there  is 
the  persistent  conflict  between  this  novelty  and  this 
apathy;  that  is  to  say  between  man's  instinct  for 
transcendence,  in  which  we  discern  the  pressure  of 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        49 

the  Spirit  and  the  earnest  of  his  future,  and  his 
tendency  to  lag  behind  towards  animal  levels,  in 
which  we  see  the  influence  of  his  racial  past.  So 
far  as  the  individual  is  concerned,  all  that  religion 
means  by  grace  is  resumed  under  the  first  head, 
much  that  it  means  by  sin  under  the  second  head. 
And  the  most  striking — though  not  the  only — ex- 
amples of  the  forward  reach  of  life  towards  freedom 
(that  is,  of  conquering  grace)  are  those  persons 
whom  we  call  men  and  women  of  the  Spirit.  In 
them  it  is  incarnate,  and  through  them,  as  it  were, 
it  spreads  and  gives  the  race  a  lift:  for  their  trans- 
figuration is  never  for  themselves  alone,  they  impart 
it  to  all  who  follow  them.  But  the  downward  fall- 
ing movement  ever  dogs  the  emerging  life  of  spirit; 
and  tends  to  drag  back  to  the  average  level  the 
group  these  have  vivified,  when  their  influence  is 
withdrawn.  Hence  the  history  of  the  Spirit — and, 
irfcidentally,  the  history  of  all  churches — exhibits  to 
us  a  series  of  strong  movements  towards  completed 
life,  inspired  by  vigorous  and  transcendent  person- 
alities; thwarted  by  the  common  indolence  and  tend- 
ency to  mechanization,  but  perpetually  renewed. 
We  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  this  history  is 
a  closed  book,  or  that  the  spiritual  life  strug- 
gling to  emerge  among  ourselves  will  follow  other 
laws. 

We  desire  then,  if  we  can,  to  discover  what  it 
was  that  these  transcendent  personalities  possessed. 
We  may  think,   from  the  point  at  which  we  now 


50  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

stand,  that  they  had  some  things  which  were  false, 
or,  at  least,  were  misinterpreted  by  them.  We  can- 
not without  insincerity  make  their  view  of  the  uni- 
verse our  own.  But,  plainly,  they  also  possessed 
truths  and  values  which  most  of  us  have  not:  they 
obtained  from  their  religion,  whether  we  allow  that 
it  had  as  creed  an  absolute  or  a  symbolic  value,  a 
power  of  living,  a  courage  and  clear  vision,  which 
we  do  not  as  a  rule  obtain.  When  we  study  the 
character  and  works  of  these  men  and  women,  ob- 
serving their  nobility,  their  sweetness,  their  power 
of  endurance,  their  outflowing  love,  we  must,  un- 
less we  be  utterly  Insensitive,  perceive  ourselves  to 
be  confronted  by  a  quality  of  being  which  we  do  not 
possess.  And  when  we  are  so  fortunate  as  to  meet 
one  of  them  in  the  flesh,  though  his  conduct  is  com- 
monly more  normal  than  our  own,  we  know  then 
with  Plotinus  that  the  soul  has  another  life.  Yet 
many  of  us  accept  the  same  creedal  forms,  use  the 
same  liturgies,  acknowledge  the  same  scale  of  values 
and  same  moral  law.  But  as  something  beyond 
what  the  ordinary  man  calls  beauty  rushes  out  to  the 
great  artist  from  the  visible  world,  and  he  at  this 
encounter  becomes  more  vividly  alive;  so  for  these 
there  was  and  is  in  religion  a  new,  intenser  life 
which  they  can  reach.  They  seem  to  represent 
favourable  variations,  genuine  movements  of  man 
towards  new  levels;  a  type  of  life  and  of  greatness, 
which  remains  among  the  hoarded  possibilities  of 
the  race. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        51 

Now  the  main  questions  which  we  have  to  ask  of 
history  fall  into  two  groups : 

First,  Type.  What  are  the  characters  which  mark 
this  life  of  the  Spirit? 

Secondly,  Process.  What  is  the  line  of  develop- 
ment by  which  the  individual  comes  to  acquire  and 
exhibit  these  characters? 

First,  then,  the  Spiritual  Type. 

What  we  see  above  all  in  these  men  and  women, 
so  frequently  repeated  that  we  may  regard  it  as 
classic,  is  a  perpertual  serious  heroic  effort  to  in- 
tegrate life  about  its  highest  factors.  Their  central 
quality  and  real  source  of  power  is  this  single-mind- 
edness.  They  aim  at  God:  the  phrase  is  Ruys- 
broeck's,  but  it  pervades  the  real  literature  of  the 
Spirit.  Thus  it  is  the  first  principle  of  Hinduism 
that  "the  householder  must  keep  touch  with  Brahma 
in  all  his  actions."  ^  Thus  the  Sufi  says  he  has 
but  two  laws — to  look  in  one  direction  and  to  live  in 
one  way.^  Christians  call  this,  and  with  reason, 
the  Imitation  of  Christ;  and  it  was  in  order  to  carry 
forward  this  imitation  more  perfectly  that  all  the 
great  Christian  systems  of  spiritual  training  were 
framed.  The  New  Testament  leaves  us  in  no  doubt 
that  the  central  fact  of  Our  Lord's  life  was  His 
abiding  sense  of  direct  connection  with  and  re- 
sponsibility to  the  Father;  that  His  teaching  and 
works  of  charity  alike  were  Inspired  by  this  union; 
and  that  He  declared  it,  not  as  a  unique  fact,  but 

1  "Autobiography  of  Maharishi  Devendranath  Tagore,"  Cap.  23. 

2  R.  A.  Ni,icholson:  "Studies  in  Islamic  Mysticism,"  Cap.  1. 


52  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

as  a  possible  human  Ideal.  This  Is  not  a  theological, 
but  a  historical  statement,  which  applies  in  Its  de- 
gree to  every  man  and  woman  who  has  been  a 
follower  of  Christ:  for  He  was,  as  St.  Paul  has 
said,  "the  eldest  in  a  vast  family  of  brothers." 
The  same  single-minded  effort  and  attainment  meet 
us  in  other  great  faiths;  though  these  may  lack  a 
historic  ideal  of  perfect  holiness  and  love.  And 
by  a  paradox  repeated  again  and  again  in  human 
history,  it  is  this  utter  devotion  to  the  spiritual  and 
eternal  which  is  seen  to  bring  forth  the  most  abun- 
dant fruits  in  the  temporal  sphere;  giving  not  only 
the  strength  to  do  difficult  things,  but  that  creative 
charity  which  "wins  and  redeems  the  unlovely  by 
the  power  of  its  love."  ^  The  man  or  woman  of 
prayer,  the  community  devoted  to  it,  tap  some 
deep  source  of  power  and  use  it  in  the  most  practical 
ways.  Thus,  the  only  object  of  the  Benedictine  rule 
was  the  fostering  of  goodness  in  those  who  adopted 
it,  the  education  of  the  soul;  and  it  became  one  of 
the  chief  instruments  in  the  civilization  of  Europe, 
carrying  forward  not  only  religion,  but  education, 
pure  scholarship,  art,  and  industrial  reform.  The 
object  of  St.  Bernard's  reform  was  the  restoration 
of  the  life  of  prayer.  His  monks,  going  out  into 
the  waste  places  with  no  provision  but  their  own 
faith,  hope  and  charity,  revived  agriculture,  estab- 
lished industry,  literally  compelled  the  wilderness 
to  flower  for  God.     The  Brothers  of  the  Common 

1  Baron  von  Hijgel  in  the  "Hibbert  Journal,"  July,  1921. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        53 

Life  joined  together,  in  order  that,  living  simply 
and  by  their  own  industry,  they  might  observe  a 
rule  of  constant  prayer:  and  they  became  in  conse- 
quence a  powerful  educational  influence.  The  ob- 
ject of  Wesley  and  his  first  companions  was  by  dec- 
laration the  saving  of  their  own  souls  and  the 
living  only  to  the  glory  of  God;  but  they  were 
impelled  at  once  by  this  to  practical  deeds  of  mercy, 
and  ultimately  became  the  regenerators  of  religion 
in  the  English-speaking  world. 

It  is  well  to  emphasize  this  truth,  for  it  conveys 
a  lesson  which  we  can  learn  from  history  at  the 
present  time  with  much  profit  to  ourselves.  It 
means  that  reconstruction  of  character  and  re- 
orientation of  attention  must  precede  reconstruction 
of  society;  that  the  Sufi  is  right  when  he  declares 
that  the  whole  secret  lies  in  looking  in  one  direction 
and  living  in  one  way.  Again  and  again  it  has 
been  proved,  that  those  who  aim  at  God  do  better 
work  than  those  who  start  with  the  declared  in- 
tention of  benefiting  their  fellow-men.  We  must 
be  good  before  we  can  do  good;  be  real  before  we 
can  accomplish  real  things.  No  generalized  benev- 
olence, no  social  Christianity,  hoivever  beautiful 
and  devoted,  can  take  the  place  of  this  centring  of 
the  spirit  on  eternal  values;  this  humble,  deliberate 
recourse  to  Reality.  To  suppose  that  it  can  do 
so,  is  to  fly  in  the  face  of  history  and  mistake  effect 
for  cause. 

This  brings  us  to  the  Second  Character-,  the  rich 


54  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

completeness  of  the  spiritual  life,  the  way  in  which 
it  fuses  and  transfigures  the  complementary  human 
tendencies  to  contemplation  and  action,  the  non- 
successive  and  successive  aspects  of  reality.  "The 
love  of  God,"  said  Ruysbroeck,  "is  an  indrawing  and 
outpouring  tide";^  and  history  endorses  this.  In 
its  greatest  representatives,  the  rhythm  of  adora- 
tion and  work  is  seen  in  an  accentuated  form. 
These  people  seldom  or  never  answer  to  the  popular 
idea  of  idle  contemplatives.  They  do  not  with- 
draw from  the  stream  of  natural  life- and  effort, 
but  plunge  into  it  more  deeply,  seek  its  heart. 
They  have  powers  of  expression  and  creation,  and 
use  them  to  the  full.  St.  Paul,  St.  Benedict,  St 
Bernard,  St.  Francis,  St.  Teresa,  St.  Ignatius  organ- 
izing families  which  shall  incarnate  the  gift  of  new 
life;  Fox,  Wesley  and  Booth  striving  to  save  other 
men;  Mary  Slessor  driven  by  vocation  from  the 
Dundee  mill  to  the  African  swamps — these  are  char- 
acteristic of  them.  We  perceive  that  they  are  not 
mere  specialists,  as  more  earthly  types  of  efficiency 
are  apt  to  be.  Theirs  are  rich  natures,  their  touch 
on  existence  has  often  an  artistic  quality.  St.  Paul 
in  his  correspondence  could  break  into  poetry,  as  the 
only  way  of  telling  the  truth.  St.  Jerome  lived  to 
the  full  the  lives  of  scholar  and  of  ascetic.  St.  Fran- 
cis, in  his  perpetual  missionary  activities,  still  found 
time  for  his  music  and  songs;  St.  Hildegarde  and 
St.   Catherine   of  Siena   had  their   strong  political 

1  Ruysbroeck:   "The   Sparkling  Stone,"   Cap.  lo. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        55 

interests;  Jacopone  da  TodI  combined  the  careers 
of  contemplative  politician  and  poet.  So  too  in 
practical  matters.  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa  was  one 
of  the  first  hospital  administrators,  St.  Vincent  de 
Paul  a  genius  in  the  sphere  of  organized  charity, 
Elizabeth  Fry  in  that  of  prison  reform.  Brother 
Laurence  assures  us  that  he  did  his  cooking  the  better  j 
for  doing  it  in  the  Presence  of  God.  Jacob  Boehme 
was  a  hard-working  cobbler,  and  afterwards  as- 
a  writer  showed  amazing  powers  of  composition. 
The  perpetual  journeyings  and  activities  of  Wesley 
reproduced  in  smaller  compass  the  career  of  St. 
Paul:  he  was  also  an  exact  scholar  and  a  practical 
educationist.  Mary  Slessor  showed  the  quality  of 
a  ruler  as  well  as  that  of  a  winner  of  souls.  In 
the  intellectual  region,  Richard  of  St.  Victor  was 
supreme  in  contemplation,  and  also  a  psychologist 
far  in  advance  of  his  time.  We  are  apt  to  forget 
the  mystical  side  of  Aquinas;  who  was  poet  and  con- 
templative as  well  as  scholastic  philosopher. 

And  the  third  feature  we  notice  about  these  men 
and  women  is,  that  this  new  power  by  which  they 
lived  was,  as  Ruysbroeck  calls  it,  "a  spreading 
hght."  ^  It  poured  out  of  them,  invading  and 
illuminating  other  men :  so  that,  through  them,  whole 
groups  or  societies  were  re-born,  if  only  for  a  time, 
on  to  fresh  levels  of  reality,  goodness  and  power. 
Their  own  intense  personal  experience  was  valid 
not  only  for  themselves.     They  belonged  to  that 

1  Ruysbroeck:  "The  Adornment  of  the  Spiritual  Marriage,"  Bk. 
II,   Cap.   39. 


56  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

class  of  natural  leaders  who  are  capable  of  infect- 
ing the  herd  with  their  own  ideals;  leading  it  to 
new  feeding  grounds,  improving  the  common  level. 
It  is  indeed  the  main  social  function  of  the  man  or 
woman  of  the  Spirit  to  be  such  a  crowd-compeller 
in  the  highest  sense;  and,  as  the  artist  reveals  new 
beauty  to  his  fellow-men,  to  stimulate  in  their  neigh- 
bours the  latent  human  capacity  for  God.  In  every 
great  surge  forward  to  new  life,  we  can  trace  back 
the  radiance  to  such  a  single  point  of  light;  the 
transfiguration  of  an  individual  soul.  Thus  Christ's 
communion  with  His  Father  was  the  life-centre,  the 
point  of  contact  with  Eternity,  whence  radiated  the 
joy  and  power  of  the  primitive  Christian  flock:  the 
classic  example  of  a  corporate  spiritual  life.  When 
the  young  man  with  great  possessions  asked  Jesus, 
"What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved?"  Jesus  replied  in 
effect,  "Put  aside  all  lesser  interests,  strip  of^  unreal- 
ities, and  come,  give  yourself  the  chance  of  catching 
the  infection  of  holiness  from  Me."  Whatever  be 
our  view  of  Christian  dogma,  whatever  meaning  we 
attach  to  the  words  "redemption"  and  "atonement," 
we  shall  hardly  deny  that  in  the  life  and  character 
of  the  historic  Christ  something  new  was  thus 
evoked  from,  and  added  to,  humanity.  No  one 
can  read  with  attention  the  Gospel  and  the  story  of 
the  primitive  Church,  without  being  struck  by  the 
consciousness  of  renovation,  of  enhancement,  ex- 
perienced by  all  who  received  the  Christian  secret 
in  its  charismatic  stage.     This  new  factor  is  some- 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        57 

times  called  re-birth,  sometimes  grace,  sometimes 
the  power  of  the  Spirit,  sometimes  being  "in  Christ." 
We  misread  history  if  we  regard  it  either  as  a  mere 
gust  of  emotional  fervour,  or  a  theological  idea,  or 
discount  the  "miracles  of  healing"  and  other  proofs 
of  enhanced  power  by  which  it  was  expressed. 
Everything  goes  to  prove  that  the  "more  abundant 
life"  offered  by  the  Johannine  Christ  to  His  fol- 
lowers, was  literally  experienced  by  them;  and  was 
the  source  of  their  joy,  their  enthusiasm,  their  mu- 
tual love  and  power  of  endurance. 

On  lower  levels,  and  through  the  Inspiration  of 
lesser  teachers,  history  shows  us  the  phenomena  of 
primitive  Christianity  repeated  again  and  again; 
both  within  and  without  the  Christian  circle  of 
ideas.  Every  religion  looks  for,  and  most  have 
possessed,  some  revealer  of  the  Spirit;  some 
Prophet,  Buddha,  Mahdi,  or  Messiah.  In  all,  the 
characteristic  demonstrations  of  the  human  power  of 
transcendence — a  supernatural  life  which  can  be 
lived  by  us — have  begun  in  one  person,  who  has 
become  a  creative  centre  mediating  new  life  to  his 
fellow-men:  as  were  Buddha  and  Mohammed  for 
the  faiths  which  they  founded.  Such  lives  as  those 
of  St.  Paul,  St.  Benedict,  St.  Francis,  Fox,  Wesley, 
Booth  are  outstanding  examples  of  the  operation  of 
this  law.  The  parable  of  the  leaven  is  in  fact  an 
exact  description  of  the  way  in  which  the  spiritual 
consciousness — the  supernatural  urge — is  observed 
to  spread  in  human  society.     It  is  characteristic  of 


58  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

the  regenerate  type,  that  he  should  as  It  were  over- 
flow his  own  boundaries  and  energize  other  souls: 
for  the  gift  of  a  real  and  harmonized  life  pours 
out  inevitably  from  those  who  possess  it  to  other 
men.  We  notice  that  the  great  mystics  recognize 
again  and  again  such  a  fertilizing  and  creative 
power,  as  a  mark  of  the  soul's  full  vitality.  It  is 
not  the  personal  rapture  of  the  spiritual  marriage, 
but  rather  the  "divine  fecundity"  of  one  who  is  a 
parent  of  spiritual  children;  which  seems  to  them  the 
goal  of  human  transcendence,  and  evidence  of  a  life 
truly  lived  on  eternal  levels,  In  real  union  with  God. 
"In  the  fourth  and  last  degree  of  love  the  soul 
brings  forth  its  children,"  says  Richard  of  St. 
Victor.  1  "The  last  perfection  to  supervene  upon 
a  thing,"  says  Aquinas,  "is  its  becoming  the  cause 
of  other  things."  ^  In  a  word,  it  Is  creative.  And 
the  spiritual  life  as  we  see  It  in  history  Is  thus  crea- 
tive; the  cause  of  other  things. 

History  is  full  of  examples  of  this  law:  that  the 
man  or  woman  of  the  spirit  Is,  fundamentally,  a 
life-giver;  and  all  corporate  achievement  of  the  life 
of  the  spirit  flows  from  some  great  apostle  or  ini- 
tiator, is  the  fruit  of  disclpleship.  Such  corporate 
achievement  is  a  form  of  group  consciousness, 
brought  into  being  through  the  power  and  attraction 
of  a  fully  harmonized  life,  infecting  others  with  its 
own  sharp  sense  of  Divine  reality.     Poets  and  artists 

iR.  of  St.  Victor:  "De  Quatuor  Gradibus  Violentae  Charitatis" 
(Migne,    Pat.    Lat.)    T.    196,    Col.    1216. 
2  "Summa   Contra   Gentiles,"   Bk.   Ill,   Cap.  21. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        59 

thus  Infect  in  a  measure  all  those  who  yield  to  their 
influence.  The  active  mystic,  who  is  the  poet  of 
Eternal  Life,  does  it  in  a  supreme  degree.  Such 
a  relation  of  master  and  disciples  is  conspicuous  in 
every  true  spiritual  revival;  and  is  the  link  between 
the  personal  and  corporate  aspects  of  regeneration. 
We  see  it  in  the  little  flock  that  followed  Christ,  the 
Little  Poor  Men  who  followed  Francis,  the  Friends 
of  Fox,  the  army  of  General  Booth.  Not  Christi- 
anity alone,  but  Hindu  and  Moslem  history  testify 
to  this  necessity.  The  Hindu  who  is  drawn  to  the 
spiritual  life  must  find  a  guru  who  can  not  only  teach 
its  laws  but  also  give  its  atmosphere;  and  must 
accept  his  discipline  in  a  spirit  of  obedience.  The 
Siili  neophyte  is  directed  to  place  himself  in  the 
hands  of  his  sheikh  "as  a  corpse  in  the  hands  of  the 
washer";  and  all  the  great  saints  of  Islam  have  been 
the  inspiring  centres  of  more  or  less  organized 
groups. 

History  teaches  us,  in  fact,  that  God  most  often 
educates  men  through  men.  We  most  easily  rec- 
ognize Spirit  when  it  is  perceived  transfiguring  hu- 
man character,  and  most  easily  achieve  It  by  means 
of  sympathetic  contagion.  Though  the  new  light 
may  flash,  as  it  seems,  directly  into  the  soul  of  the 
specially  gifted  or  the  inspired,  this  spontaneous  out- 
breaking of  novelty  is  comparatively  rare;  and  even 
here,  careful  analysis  will  generally  reveal  the  ex- 
tent In  which  environment,  tradition,  teaching  liter- 
ary or  oral,  have  prepared  the  way  for  it.     There 


60  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

is  no  aptitude  so  great  that  it  can  afford  to  dispense 
with  human  experience  and  education.  Even  the 
noblest  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  God  are  also 
the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  race;  and  are  helped 
by  those  who  go  before  them.  And  as  regards  the 
generality,  not  isolated  effort  but  the  love  and 
sincerity  of  the  true  spiritual  teacher — and  every 
man  and  woman  of  the  Spirit  is  such  a  teacher  within 
his  own  sphere  of  influence — the  unselfconscious 
trust  of  the  disciple,  are  the  means  by  which  the 
secret  of  full  life  has  been  handed  on.  "One  loving 
spirit,"  said  St.  Augustine,  "sets  another  on  fire"; 
and  expressed  in  this  phrase  the  law  which  governs 
the  spiritual  history  of  man.  This  law  finds  notable 
expression  in  the  phenomena  of  the  Religious  Order; 
a  type  of  association,  found  in  more  or  less  per- 
fection in  every  great  religion,  which  has  not  re- 
ceived the  attention  it  deserves  from  students  of 
psychology.  If  we  study  the  lives  of  those  who 
founded  these  Orders — though  such  a  foundation 
was  not  always  intended  by  them — we  notice  one 
general  characteristic:  each  was  an  enthusiast, 
abounding  in  zest  and  hope,  and  became  in  his  life- 
time a  fount  of  regeneration,  a  source  of  spiritual 
infection,  for  those  who  came  under  his  influence. 
In  each  the  spiritual  world  was  seen  "through  a 
temperament,"  and  so  mediated  to  the  disciples; 
who  shared  so  far  as  they  were  able  the  master's 
special  secret  and  attitude  to  life.  Thus  St.  Bene- 
dict's sane  and  generous  outlook  is  crystallized  in 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        61 

the  Benedictine  rule.  St.  Francis'  deep  sense  of  the 
connection  between  poverty  and  freedom  gave 
Franciscan  regeneration  its  peculiar  character. 
The  heroisms  of  the  early  Jesuit  missionaries  re- 
flected the  strong  courageous  temper  of  St.  Ignatius. 
The  rich  contemplative  life  of  Carmel  is  a  direct  in- 
heritance from  St.  Teresa's  mystical  experience. 
The  great  Orders  in  their  purity  were  families,  In- 
heriting and  reproducing  the  salient  qualities  of  their 
patriarch;  who  gave,  as  a  father  to  his  children,  life 
stamped  with  his  own  characteristics. 

Yet  sooner  or  later  after  the  withdrawal  of  its 
founder,  the  group  appears  to  lose  its  spontaneous 
and  enthusiastic  character.  Zest  fails.  Unless  a 
fresh  leader  be  forthcoming,  it  inevitably  settles 
down  again  towards  the  general  level  of  the  herd. 
Thence  it  can  only  be  roused  by  means  of  "reforms" 
or  "revivals,"  the  arrival  of  new,  vigorous  leaders, 
and  the  formation  of  new  enthusiastic  groups:  for 
the  bulk  of  men  as  we  know  them  cannot  or  will  not 
make  the  costing  effort  needed  for  a  first-hand  par- 
ticipation in  eternal  life.  They  want  a  "crowd-com- 
peller"  to  lift  them  above  themselves.  Thus  the 
history  of  Christianity  Is  the  history  of  successive 
spiritual  group-formations,  and  their  struggle  to 
survive;  from  the  time  when  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
formed  His  little  flock  with  the  avowed  aim  of 
"bringing  In  the  Kingdom  of  God" — transmuting  the 
mentality  of  the  race,  and  so  giving  it  more  abun- 
dant life. 


62  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

Christians  appeal  to  the  continued  teaching  and 
compelling  power  of  their  Master,  the  influence  and 
infection  of  His  spirit  and  atmosphere,  as  the  great- 
est of  the  regenerative  forces  still  at  work  within 
life:  and  this  is  undoubtedly  true  of  those  devout 
spirits  able  to  maintain  contact  with  the  eternal 
world  in  prayer.  The  great  speech  of  Serenus  de 
Cressy  in  "John  Inglesant"  described  once  for  all 
the  highest  type  of  Christian  spirituality.^  But  in 
practice  this  link  and  this  influence  are  too  subtle  for 
the  mass  of  men.  They  must  constantly  be  re- 
experienced  by  ardent  and  consecrated  souls;  and 
by  them  be  mediated  to  fresh  groups,  formed  within 
or  without  the  institutional  frame.  Thus  in  the 
thirteenth  century  St.  Francis,  and  in  the  fourteenth 
the  Friends  of  God,  created  a  true  spiritual  society 
within  the  Church,  by  restoring  in  themselves  and 
their  followers  the  lost  consistency  between  Christian 
idea  and  Christian  life.  In  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries,  Fox  and  Wesley  possessed  by 
the  same  essential  vision,  broke  away  from  the 
institution  which  was  no  longer  supple  enough  to 
meet  their  needs,  and  formed  their  fresh  groups 
outside  the  old  herd. 

When  such  creative  personalities  appear  and  such 
groups  are  founded  by  them,  the  phenomena  of  the 
spiritual  life  reappear  in  their  full  vigour,  and  are 
disseminated.  A  new  vitality,  a  fresh  power  of 
endurance,  is  seen  in  all  who  are  drawn  within  the 

ij.  E.   Shorthouse:  "John   Inglesant,"   Cap.   19. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        63 

group  and  share  its  mind.  This  is  what  St.  Paul 
seems  to  have  meant,  when  he  reminded  his  con- 
verts that  they  had  the  mind  of  Christ.  The  primi- 
tive friars,  living  under  the  influence  of  Francis,  did 
practice  the  perfect  poverty  which  is  also  perfect 
joy.  The  assured  calm  and  willing  sufferings  of  the 
early  Christians  were  reproduced  in  the  early 
Quakers,  secure  in  their  possession  of  the  inner 
light.  We  know  very  well  the  essential  characters 
of  this  fresh  mentality;  the  power,  the  enthusiasm, 
the  radiant  joy,  the  indifference  to  pain  and  hard- 
ship it  confers.  But  we  can  no  more  produce  it 
from  these  raw  materials  than  the  chemist's  crucible 
can  produce  life.  The  whole  experience  of  St. 
Francis  is  implied  in  the  Beatitudes.  The  secret 
of  Elizabeth  Fry  is  the  secret  of  St.  John.  The 
doctrine  of  General  Booth  is  fully  stated  by  St. 
Paul.  But  it  was  not  by  referring  inquirers  to  the 
pages  of  the  New  Testament  that  the  first  brought 
men  fettered  by  things  to  experience  the  freedom  of 
poverty;  the  second  faced  and  tamed  three  hundred 
Newgate  criminals,  who  seemed  at  her  first  visit 
"like  wild  beasts";  or  the  third  created  armies  of 
the  redeemed  from  the  dregs  of  the  London  Slums. 
They  did  these  things  by  direct  personal  contagion; 
and  they  will  be  done  among  us  again  when  the 
triumphant  power  of  Eternal  Spirit  is  again  exhib- 
ited, not  in  ideas  but  in  human  character. 

I  think,  then,  that  history  justifies  us  in  regarding 
the  full  living  of  the  spiritual  life  as  implying  at 


64  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

least  these  three  characters.  First,  single-minded- 
r  'ness:  to  mean  only  God.  Second,  the  full  integra- 
tion of  the  contemplative  and  active  sides  of  exis- 
tence, lifted  up,  harmonized,  and  completely  conse- 
crated to  those  interests  which  the  self  recognizes 
as  Divine.  Third,  the  power  of  reproducing  this 
life;  incorporating  it  in  a  group.  Before  we  go  on, 
we  will  look  at  one  concrete  example  which  illus- 
trates all  these  points.  This  example  is  that  of  St. 
Benedict  and  the  Order  which  he  founded;  for  in 
the  rounded  completeness  of  his  life  and  system  we 
see  what  should  be  the  normal  life  of  the  Spirit, 
and  its  result. 

Benedict  was  born  in  times  not  unlike  our  own, 
when  wars  had  shaken  civilization,  the  arts  of  peace 
were  unsettled,  religion  was  at  a  low  ebb.  As  a 
young  man,  he  experienced  an  intense  revulsion  from 
the  vicious  futility  of  Roman  society,  fled  into  the 
hills,  and  lived  in  a  cave  for  three  years  alone  with 
his  thoughts  of  God.  It  would  be  easy  to  regard 
him  as  an  eccentric  boy :  but  he  was  adjusting  himself 
to  the  real  centre  of  his  life.  Gradually  others 
who  longed  for  a  more  real  existence  joined  him, 
and  he  divided  them  into  groups  of  twelve,  and  set- 
tled them  in  small  houses;  giving  them  a  time-table 
by  which  to  live,  which  should  make  possible  a  full 
and  balanced  existence  of  body,  mind  and  soul. 
Thanks  to  those  years  of  retreat  and  preparation, 
he  knew  what  he  wanted  and  what  he  ought  to  do; 
and     they    ushered    in     a    long    life     of    intense 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        65 

mental  and  spiritual  activity.  His  houses  were 
schools,  which  taught  the  service  of  God  and  the 
perfecting  of  the  soul  as  the  aims  of  life.  His 
rule,  in  which  genial  human  tolerance,  gentle  cour- 
tesy, and  a  profound  understanding  of  men  are  not 
less  marked  than  lofty  spirituality,  is  the  classic  state- 
ment of  all  that  the  Christian  spiritual  life  implies 
and  should  be.^ 

What,  then,  is  the  character  of  the  life  which  St. 
Benedict  proposed  as  a  remedy  for  the  human 
failure  and  disharmony  that  he  saw  around  him? 
It  was  framed,  of  course,  for  a  celibate  community: 
but  It  has  many  permanent  features  which  are 
unaffected  by  his  limitation.  It  offers  balanced 
opportunities  of  development  to  the  body,  the  mind 
and  the  spirit;  laying  equal  emphasis  on  hard  work, 
study,  and  prayer.  It  aims  at  a  robust  complete- 
ness, not  at  the  production  of  professional  ascetics; 
indeed.  Its  Rule  says  little  about  physical  austeri- 
ties, insists  on  sufficient  food  and  rest,  and  counte- 
nances no  extremes.  According  to  Abbot  Butler,  St. 
Benedict's  day  was  divided  Into  three  and  a  half 
hours  for  public  worship,  four  and  a  half  for  read- 
ing and  meditation,  six  and  a  half  for  manual  work, 
eight  and  a  half  for  sleep,  and  one  hour  for  meals. 
So  that  In  spite  of  the  time  devoted  to  spiritual  and 
mental  Interests,  the  primitive  Benedictine  did  a 
good  day's  work  and  had  a  good  night's  rest  at  the 

1  Cf .    Delatte:    "The    Rule    of    St.    Benedict";    and    C.    Butler: 
"Benedictine    Monachism." 


66  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

end  of  it.  The  work  might  be  anything  that 
wanted  doing,  so  long  as  the  hours  of  prayer  were 
not  infringed.  Agriculture,  scholarship,  education, 
handicrafts  and  art  have  all  been  done  perfectly  by 
St.  Benedict's  sons,  working  and  willing  in  quiet 
love.  This  is  what  one  of  the  greatest  constructive 
minds  of  Christendom  regarded  as  a  reasonable 
way  of  life;  a  frame  within  which  the  loftiest  human 
faculties  could  grow,  and  man's  spirit  achieve  that 
harmony  with  God  which  is  its  goal.  Moreover, 
this  life  was  to  be  social.  It  was  in  the  beginning 
just  the  busy  useful  life  of  an  Italian  farm,  lived  in 
groups — in  monastic  families,  under  the  rule  and 
inspiration  not  of  a  Master  but  of  an  Abbot;  a 
Father  who  really  was  the  spiritual  parent  of  his 
monks,  and  sought  to  train  them  in  the  humility,  obe- 
dience, self-denial  and  gentle  suppleness  of  character 
which  are  the  authentic  fruits  of  the  Spirit.  This 
ideal,  it  seems  to  me,  has  something  still  to  say  to  us; 
some  reproof  to  administer  to  our  hurried  and 
muddled  existence,  our  confusion  of  values,  our 
failure  to  find  time  for  reality.  We  shall  find  in  it 
and  its  creator,  if  we  look,  all  those  marks  of  the 
regenerate  life  of  the  Spirit  which  history  has  shown 
to  us  as  normal:  namely  the  transcendent  aim,  the 
balanced  career  of  action  and  contemplation,  the 
creative  power,  and  above  all  the  principle  of 
social  solidarity  and  discipleshlp. 

We  go  on  to  ask  history  what  it  has  to  tell  us  on 
the  second  point,  the  process  by  which  the  individual 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        67 

normally  develops  this  life  of  the  Spirit,  the  serial 
changes  it  demands;  for  plainly,  to  know  this  is 
of  practical  importance  to  us.  The  full  inwardness 
of  these  changes  will  be  considered  when  we  come 
to  the  personal  aspect  of  the  spiritual  life.  Now 
we  are  only  concerned  to  notice  that  history  tends  to 
establish  the  constant  recurrence  of  a  normal  proc- 
ess, recognizable  alike  in  great  and  small  person- 
alities under  the  various  labels  which  have  been 
given  to  it,  by  which  the  self  moves  from  Its  usually 
exclusive  correspondence  with  the  temporal  order 
to  those  full  correspondences  with  reality,  that  union 
with  God,  characteristic  of  the  spiritual  life.  This 
life  we  must  believe  in  some  form  and  degree  to  be 
possible  for  all;  but  we  study  it  best  on  heroic  levels, 
for  here  its  moments  are  best  marked  and  Its  fullest 
records  survive. 

The  first  moment  of  this  process  seems  to  be,  that 
man  falls  out  of  love  with  life  as  he  has  commonly 
lived  It,  and  the  world  as  he  has  known  It.  Dis- 
satisfaction and  disillusion  possess  him;  the  negative 
marks  of  his  nascent  Intuition  of  another  life,  for 
which  he  Is  Intended  but  which  he  has  not  yet  found. 
We  see  this  Initial  phase  very  well  In  St.  Benedict, 
disgusted  by  the  meaningless  life  of  Roman  society; 
in  St.  Francis,  abandoning  his  gay  and  successful 
social  existence;  In  Richard  Rolle,  turning  suddenly 
from  scholarship  to  a  hermit's  life;  In  the  restless 
misery  of  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa;  in  Fox,  des- 
perately seeking   "something  that  could   speak   to 


68  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

his  condition" ;  and  also  in  two  outstanding  ex- 
amples from  modern  India,  those  of  the  Maharishi 
Devendranath  Tagore  and  the  Sadhu  Sundar  Singh. 
This  dissatisfaction,  sometimes  associated  with  the 
negative  vision  or  conviction  of  sin,  sometimes  with 
the  positive  longing  for  holiness  and  peace,  is  the 
mental  preparation  of  conversion;  which,  though 
not  a  constant,  is  at  least  a  characteristic  feature  of 
the  beginning  of  the  spiritual  life  as  seen  in  history. 
We  might,  indeed,  expect  some  crucial  change  of 
attitude,  some  inner  crisis,  to  mark  the  beginning  of 
a  new  life  which  is  to  aim  only  at  God,  Here  too 
we  find  one  motive  of  that  movement  of  world- 
abandonment  which  so  commonly  follows  conver- 
sion, especially  in  heroic  souls.  Thus  St,  Paul  hides 
himself  in  Arabia;  St.  Benedict  retires  for  three 
years  to  the  cave  at  Subiaco;  St.  Ignatius  to  Man- 
resa.  Gerard  Groot,  the  brilliant  and  wealthy 
young  Dutchman  who  founded  the  brotherhood  of 
the  Common  Life,  began  his  new  life  by  self- 
seclusion  in  a  Carthusian  cell.  St.  Catherine  of 
Siena  at  first  lived  solitary  in  her  own  room.  St. 
Francis  with  dramatic  completeness  abandoned  his 
whole  past,  even  the  clothing  that  was  part  of  it. 
Jacopone  da  Todi,  the  prosperous  lawyer  converted 
to  Christ's  poverty,  resorted  to  the  most  grotesque 
devices  to  express  his  utter  separation  from  the 
world.  Others,  it  is  true,  have  chosen  quieter 
methods,  and  found  in  that  which  St.  Catherine  calls 
the    cell    of   self-knowledge    the    solitude    they    re- 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        69 

quired;  but  some  decisive  break  was  imperative  for 
all.  History  assures  us  that  there  is  no  easy  sliding 
into  the  life  of  the  Spirit. 

A  secondary  cause  of  such  world  refusal  is  the 
first  awakening  of  the  contemplative  powers;  the  in- 
tuition of  Eternity,  hitherto  dormant,  and  felt  at 
this  stage  to  be — in  its  overwhelming  reality  and 
appeal — in  conflict  with  the  unreal  world  and  un- 
sublimated  active  life.  This  is  the  controlling  idea 
of  the  hermit  and  recluse.  It  is  well  seen  in  St. 
Teresa;  whom  her  biographers  describe  as  torn,  for 
years,  between  the  interests  of  human  intercourse 
and  the  imperative  inner  voice  urging  her  to  solitary 
self-discipline  and  prayer.  So  we  may  say  that  in 
the  beginning  of  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  as  history 
shows  it  to  us,  if  disillusion  marks  the  first  moment, 
some  measure  of  asceticism,  of  world-refusal  and 
painful  self-schooling,  is  likely  to  mark  the  second 
moment. 

What  we  are  watching  is  the  complete  recon- 
struction of  personality;  a  personality  that  has 
generally  grown  into  the  wrong  shape.  This  is 
likely  to  be  a  hard  and  painful  business;  and  indeed 
history  assures  us  that  it  is,  and  further  that  the 
spiritual  life  is  never  achieved  by  taking  the  line  of 
least  resistance  and  basking  in  the  divine  light. 
With  world-refusal,  then,  is  intimately  connected 
stern  moral  conflict;  often  lasting  for  years,  and 
having  as  its  object  the  conquest  of  selfhood  in  all 
its  insidious  forms.     "Take  one  step  out  of  your- 


70  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

self,"  say  the  Sufis,  "and  you  will  arrive  at  God."  ^ 
This  one  step  is  the  most  difficult  act  of  life;  yet 
urged  by  love,  man  has  taken  it  again  and  again. 
This  phase  is  so  familiar  to  ev^ery  reader  of  spiritual 
biography,  that  I  need  not  insist  upon  it.  "In  the 
field  of  this  body,"  says  Kabir,  "a  great  war  goes 
forward,  against  passion,  anger,  pride  and  greed. 
It  is  in  the  Kingdom  of  Truth,  Contentment  and 
Purity  that  this  battle  is  raging,  and  the  sword  that 
rings  forth  most  loudly  is  the  sword  of  His 
Name."  ^  "Man,"  says  Boehme,  "must  here  be  at 
war  with  himself  if  he  wishes  to  be  a  heavenly  citi- 
zen .  .  .  fighting  must  be  the  watchword,  not  with 
tongue  and  sword,  but  with  mind  and  spirit;  and  not 
to  give  over."  *  The  need  of  such  a  conflict,  shown 
to  us  in  history,  is  explained  on  human  levels  by  psy- 
chology. On  spiritual  levels  it  is  made  plain  to  all 
whose  hearts  are  touched  by  the  love  of  God.  By 
this  way  all  must  pass  who  achieve  the  life  of  the 
Spirit;  subduing  to  its  purposes  their  wayward  wills, 
and  sublimating  in  its  power  their  conflicting  an- 
imal impulses.  This  long  effort  brings  as  its  re- 
ward a  unification  of  character,  an  inflow  of  power: 
from  it  we  see  the  mature  man  or  woman  of  the 
Spirit  emerge.  In  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa  this  con- 
flict lasted  for  four  years,  after  which  the  thought  of 
sin  ceased  to  rule  her  consciousness.^     St.  Teresa's 

1  R.  A.  Nicholson:  "Studies  in  Islamic  Mysticism,"  Cap.  i. 
'  "One  Hundred  Poems  of  Kabir,"  p.  44. 
3  Boehme:     "Six    Theosophic    Points,"    p.    m. 
*  Cf.    Von    Hugel:    "The    Mystical    Element   of   Religion,"    Vol. 
I,  Pt.  II. 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        71 

intermittent  struggles  are  said  to  have  continued  for 
thirty  years.  John  Wesley,  always  deeply  reli- 
gious, did  not  attain  the  inner  stability  he  calls 
assurance  till  he  was  thirty-five  years  old.  Blake 
was  for  twenty  years  In  mental  conflict,  shut  off 
from  the  sources  of  his  spiritual  life.  So  slowly  do 
great  personalities  come  to  their  full  stature,  and 
subdue  their  vigorous  Impulses  to  the  one  ruling 
Idea. 

The  ending  of  this  conflict,  the  self's  Unification 
and  establishment  in  the  new  life,  commonly  means 
a  return  more  or  less  complete  to  that  world  from 
which  the  convert  had  retreated;  taking  up  of  the 
fully  energized  and  fully  consecrated  human  ex- 
istence, which  must  express  itself  In  work  no  less 
than  in  prayer;  an  exhibition  too  of  the  capacity  for 
leadership  which  Is  the  mark  of  the  regenerate 
mind.  Thus  the  "first  return"  of  the  Buddhist 
saint  is  "from  the  absolute  world  to  the  world  of 
phenomena  to  save  all  sentient  beings."  ^  Thus  St. 
Benedict's  and  St.  Catherine  of  Siena's  three  soli- 
tary years  are  the  preparation  for  their  great  and 
active  life  works.  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa,  first  a 
disappointed  and  world-weary  woman  and  then  a 
penitent,  emerges  as  a  busy  and  devoted  hospital 
matron  and  Inspired  teacher  of  a  group  of  disciples. 
St.  Teresa's  long  Interior  struggles  precede  her 
vigorous  career  as  founder  and  reformer;  her 
creation  of  spiritual  families,  new  centres  of  con- 

^McGovern:  "An  Introduction  to  Mahayana  Buddhism,"  p.  175. 


72  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

templative  life.  The  vast  activities  of  Fox  and 
Wesley  were  the  fruits  first  of  inner  conflict,  then  of 
assurance — the  experience  of  God  and  of  the  self's 
relation  to  Him.  And  on  the  highest  levels  of  the 
spiritual  life  as  history  shows  them  to  us,  this  ex- 
perience and  realization,  first  of  profound  harmony 
with  Eternity  and  its  interests,  next  of  a  personal 
relation  of  love,  last  of  an  indwelling  creative 
power,  a  givenness,  an  energizing  grace,  reaches 
that  completeness  to  which  has  been  given  the  name 
of  union  with  God. 

The  great  man  or  woman  of  the  Spirit  "^'ho 
achieves  this  perfect  development  is,  it  is  true,  a 
special  product:  a  genius,  comparable  with  great 
creative  personalities  in  other  walks  of  life.  But  he 
neither  invalidates  the  smaller  talent  nor  the  more 
general  tendency  in  which  his  supreme  gift  takes  its 
rise.  Where  he  appears,  that  tendency  is  vigorously 
stimulated.  Like  other  artists,  he  founds  a  school; 
the  spiritual  life  flames  up,  and  spreads  to  those 
within  his  circle  of  influence.  Through  him,  ordi- 
nary men,  whose  aptitude  for  God  might  have  re- 
mained latent,  obtain  a  fresh  start;  an  impetus  to 
growth.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  he  might  say 
with  the  Johannine  Christ,  "He  that  receiveth  me 
receiveth  Him  that  sent  me";  for  yielding  to  his 
magnetism,  men  really  yield  to  the  drawing  of  the 
Spirit  itself.  And  when  they  do  this,  their  lives  are 
found  to  reproduce — though  with  less  intensity — 
the   life   history   of   their   leader.       Therefore   the 


HISTORY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT        73 

main  characters  of  that  life  history,  that  steady  un- 
divided process  of  sublimation,*  are  normal  human 
characters.  We  too  may  heal  the  discords  of  our 
moral  nature,  learn  to  judge  existence  in  the  univer- 
sal light,  bring  into  consciousness  our  latent  tran- 
scendental sense,  and  keep  ourselves  so  spiritually 
supple  that  alike  in  times  of  stress  and  hours  of 
prayer  and  silence  we  are  aware  of  the  mysterious 
and  energizing  contact  of  God.  Psychology  sug- 
gests to  us  that  the  great  spiritual  personalities  re- 
vealed in  history  are  but  supreme  instances  of  a 
searching  self-adjustment  and  of  a  way  of  life,  al- 
ways accessible  to  love  and  courage,  which  all  men 
may  in  some  sense  undertake. 


CHAPTER  III 

PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

(I)  The  Analysis  of  Mind 

Having  interrogated  history  in  our  attempt  to 
discover  the  essential  character  of  the  life  of  the 
Spirit,  wherever  it  is  found,  we  are  now  to  see  what 
psychology  has  to  tell  us  or  hint  to  us  of  its  nature; 
and  of  the  relation  in  which  it  stands  to  the 
mechanism  of  our  psychic  life.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  such  an  inquiry,  fully  carried 
out,  would  be  a  life-work.  Moreover,  it  is  an  in- 
quiry which  we  are  not  yet  in  a  position  to  under- 
take. True,  more  and  more  material  is  daily  be- 
coming available  for  it:  but  many  of  the  principles 
involved  are,  even  yet,  obscure.  Therefore  any 
conclusions  at  which  we  may  arrive  can  only  be  ten- 
tative; and  the  theories  and  schematic  representa- 
tions that  we  shall  be  obliged  to  use  must  be  re- 
garded as  mere  working  diagrams — almost  cer- 
tainly of  a  temporary  character — but  useful  to  us, 
because  they  do  give  us  an  interpretation  of  inner  ex- 
perience with  which  we  can  deal.  I  need  not 
emphasize  the  extent  in  which  modern  develop- 
ments of  psychology  are  affecting  our  conceptions  of 

74 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      75 

the  spiritual  life,  and  our  reading  of  many  religious 
phenomena  on  which  our  ancestors  looked  with  awe. 
When  we  have  eliminated  the  more  heady  exagger- 
ations of  the  psycho-analysts,  and  the  too-violent 
simplifications  of  the  behaviourists,  it  remains  true 
that  many  problems  have  lately  been  elucidated  in 
an  unexpected,  and  some  in  a  helpful,  sense.  We 
are  learning  in  particular  to  see  in  true  proportion 
those  abnormal  states  of  trance  and  ecstasy  which 
were  once  regarded  as  the  essentials,  but  are  now 
recognized  as  the  by-products,  of  the  mystical  life. 
But  a  good  deal  that  at  first  sight  seems  startling, 
and  even  disturbing  to  the  religious  mind,  turns  out 
on  investigation  to  be  no  more  than  the  relabelling 
of  old  facts,  which  behind  their  new  tickets  remain 
unchanged.  Perhaps  no  generation  has  ever  been 
so  much  at  the  mercy  of  such  labels  as  our  own. 
Thus  many  people  who  are  inclined  to  jibe  at  the 
doctrine  of  original  sin  welcome  it  with  open  arms 
when  it  is  reintroduced  as  the  uprush  of  primitive 
instinct.  Opportunity  of  confession  to  a  psycho- 
analyst is  eagerly  sought  and  gladly  paid  for,  by 
troubled  spirits  who  would  never  resort  for  the 
same  purpose  to  a  priest.  The  formulae  of  auto- 
suggestion are  freely  used  by  those  who  repudiate 
vocal  prayer  and  acts  of  faith  with  scorn.  If,  then, 
I  use  for  the  purpose  of  exposition  some  of  those 
labels  which  are  affected  by  the  newest  schools,  I  do 
so  without  any  suggestion  that  they  represent  the 
only  valid  way  of  dealing  with  the  psychic  life  of 


7(5  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

man.  Indeed,  I  regard  these  labels  as  little  more 
than  exceedingly  clever  guesses  at  truth.  But  since 
they  are  now  generally  current  and  often  suggestive, 
it  is  well  that  we  should  try  to  find  a  place  for 
spiritual  experience  within  the  system  which  they 
represent;  thus  carrying  through  the  principle  on 
which  we  are  working,  that  of  interpreting  the 
abiding  facts  of  the  spiritual  life,  so  far  as  we  can,  in 
the  language  of  the  present  day. 

First,  then,  I  propose  to  consider  the  analysis  of 
mind,  and  what  it  has  to  tell  us  a'bout  the  nature  of 
Sin,  of  Salvation,  of  Conversion;  what  light  It 
casts  on  the  process  of  purgation  or  self-purification 
which  Is  demanded  by  all  religions  of  the  Spirit; 
what  are  the  respective  parts  played  by  reason  and 
instinct  in  the  process  of  regeneration;  and  the 
Importance  for  religious  experience  of  the  phenom- 
ena of  apperception. 

We  need  not  at  this  point  consider  again  all  that 
we  mean  by  the  life  of  the  Spirit.  We  have 
already  considered  it  as  it  appears  in  history — Its 
inexhaustible  variety,  its  power,  nobility,  and  grace. 
We  need  only  to  remind  ourselves  that  what  we  have 
got  to  find  room  for  in  our  psychological  scheme  Is 
literally,  a  changed  and  enhanced  life;  a  life  which, 
immersed  in  the  stream  of  history.  Is  yet  poised  on 
the  eternal  world.  This  life  involves  a  complete 
re-direction  of  our  desires  and  impulses,  a  trans- 
figuration of  character;  and  often,  too,  a  sense  of 
subjugation  to  superior  guidance,  of  an  access  of 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      77 

impersonal  strength,  so  overwhelming  as  to  give 
many  of  its  activities  an  inspirational  or  automatic 
character.  We  found  that  this  life  was  marked  by 
a  rhythmic  alternation  between  receptivity  and 
activity,  more  complete  and  purposeful  than  the 
rhythm  of  work  and  rest  which  conditions,  or  should 
condition,  the  healthy  life  of  sense.  This  re-direc- 
tion and  transfiguration,  this  removal  to  a  higher 
term  of  our  mental  rhythm,  are  of  course  psychic 
phenomena;  using  this  word  in  a  broad  sense,  with- 
out prejudice  to  the  discrimination  of  any  one  aspect 
of  It  as  spiritual.  All  that  we  mean  at  the  moment 
is,  that  the  change  which  brings  in  the  spiritual  life  is 
a  change  in  the  mind  and  heart  of  man,  working  in 
the  stuff  of  our  common  human  nature,  and  involving 
all  that  the  modern  psychologist  means  by  the  word 
psyche. 

We  begin  therefore  with  the  nature  of  the  psyche 
as  this  modern,  growing,  changing  psychology 
conceives  It;  for  this  is  the  raw  material  of  regen- 
erate man.  If  we  exclude  those  merely  degraded 
and  pathological  theories  which  have  resulted  from 
too  exclusive  a  study  of  degenerate  minds,  we  find 
that  the  current  conception  of  the  psyche — by  which 
of  course  I  do  not  mean  the  classic  conceptions  of 
Ward  or  even  William  James — was  anticipated  by 
Plotinus,  when  he  said  In  the  Fourth  Ennead,  that 
■every  soul  has  something  of  the  lower  life  for  the 
purposes  of  the  body  an-d  of  the  higher  for  the 
purposes  of  the  Spirit,  and  yet  constitutes  a  unity; 


78  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

an  unbroken  series  of  ascending  values  and  powers 
of  response,  from  the  levels  of  merely  physical  and 
mainly  unconscious  life  to  those  of  the  self-determin- 
ing and  creative  consciousness/  We  first  discover 
psychic  energy  as  undifferentiated  directive  power, 
controlling  response  and  adaption  to  environment; 
and  as  it  develops,  ever  increasing  the  complexity 
of  its  impulses  and  habits,  yet  never  abandoning 
anything  of  its  past.  Instinct  represents  the  corre- 
spondence of  this  life-force  with  mere  nature,  its 
effort  as  it  were  to  keep  its  footing  and  accomplish 
its  destiny  in  the  world  of  time.  Spirit  represents 
this  same  life  acting  on  highest  levels,  with  most 
vivid  purpose;  seeking  and  achieving  correspondence 
with  the  eternal  world,  and  realities  of  the  loftiest 
order  yet  discovered  to  be  accessible  to  us.  We  are 
compelled  to  use  words  of  this  kind;  and  the  pro- 
ceeding is  harmless  enough  so  long  as  we  remember 
that  they  are  abstractions,  and  that  we  have  no  real 
reason  to  suppose  breaks  in  the  life  process  which 
extends  from  the  infant's  first  craving  for  food  and 
shelter  to  the  saint's  craving  for  the  knowledge  of 
God.  This  urgent,  craving  life  is  the  dominant 
characteristic  of  the  psyche.  Thought  is  but  the 
last  come  and  least  developed  of  its  powers;  one 
among  its  various  responses  to  environment,  and 
ways  of  laying  hold  on  experience. 

This  conception  of  the  multiplicity  in  unity  of  the 
psyche,  conscious  and  unconscious,  is  probably  one 

lEnnead    IV.    8.    5. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      79 

of  the  most  important  results  of  recent  psychological 
advance.  It  means  that  we  cannot  any  longer  in 
the  good  old  way  rule  off  bits  or  aspects  of  it,  and 
call  them  intellect,  soul,  spirit,  conscience  and  so 
forth;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  refer  to  our  "lower" 
nature  as  if  it  were  something  separate  from  our- 
selves. I  am  spirit  when  I  pray,  if  I  pray  rightly. 
I  am  my  lower  nature,  when  my  thoughts  and  deeds 
are  swayed  by  my  primitive  impulses  and  physical 
longings,  declared  or  disguised.  I  am  most  wholly 
myself  when  that  impulsive  nature  and  that  craving 
spirit  are  welded  into  one,  subject  to  the  same  emo- 
tional stimulus,  directed  to  one  goal.  When  theolo- 
gians and  psychologists,  ignoring  this  unjty  of  the 
self,  set  up  arbitrary  divisions — and  both  classes  are 
very  fond  of  doing  so — they  are  merely  making 
diagrams  for  their  own  convenience.  We  ourselves 
shall  probably  be  compelled  to  do  this:  and  the  pro- 
ceeding is  harmless  enough,  so  long  as  we  recollect 
that  these  diagrams  are  at  best  symbolic  pictures  of 
fact.  Specially  is  it  necessary  to  keep  our  heads, 
and  refuse  to  be  led  away  by  the  constant  modern 
talk  of  the  primitive,  unconscious,  foreconscious  in- 
stinctive and  other  minds  which  are  so  prominent  in 
modern  psychological  literature,  or  by  the  spatial 
suggestions  of  such  terms  as  threshold,  complex, 
channel  of  discharge :  remembering  always  the  cen- 
tral unity  and  non-material  nature  of  that  many- 
faced  psychic  life  which  is  described  under  these 
various  formulae. 


80  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

If  we  accept  this  central  unity  with  all  its  implica- 
tions, it  follows  that  we  cannot  take  our  superior 
and  conscious  faculties,  set  them  apart,  and  call 
them  "ourselves";  refusing  responsibility  for  the 
more  animal  and  less  fortunate  tendencies  and  in- 
stincts which  surge  up  with  such  distressing  ease  and 
frequency  from  the  deeps,  by  attributing  these  to 
nature  or  heredity.  Indeed,  more  and  more  does  it 
become  plain  that  the  sophisticated  surface-mind 
which  alone  we  usually  recognize  is  the  smallest,  the 
least  developed,  and  in  some  respects  still  the  least 
important  part  of  the  real  self:  that  whole  man  of 
impulse,  thought  and  desire,  which  it  is  the  business 
of  religion  to  capture  and  domesticate  for  God. 
That  whole  man  is  an  animal-spirit,  a  living,  grow- 
ing, plastic  unit;  moving  towards  a  racial  future  yet 
unperceived  by  us,  and  carrying  with  him  a  racial  past 
which  conditions  at  every  moment  his  choices,  im- 
pulses and  acts.  Only  the  most  rigid  self-examina- 
tion will  disclose  to  us  the  extent  in  which  the  jungle 
and  the  Stone  Age  are  still  active  in  our  games,  our 
politics  and  our  creeds;  how  many  of  our  motives 
are  still  those  of  primitive  man,  and  how  many  of 
our  social  institutions  offer  him  a  discreet  opportu- 
nity of  self-expression. 

Here,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  a  point  at  which  the  old 
thoughts  of  religion  and  the  new  thoughts  of  psy- 
chology may  unite  and  complete  one  another. 
Here  the  scientific  conception  of  the  psyche  is 
merely  restating   the   fundamental   Christian   par- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      81 

adox,  that  man  is  truly  one,  a  living,  growing 
spirit,  the  creature  and  child  of  the  Divine  Life; 
and  yet  that  there  seem  to  be  in  him,  as  it  were,  two 
antagonistic  natures — that  duality  which  St.  Paul 
calls  the  old  Adam  and  the  new  Adam.  The  law 
of  the  flesh  and  the  law  of  the  spirit,  the  earthward- 
tending  life  of  mere  natural  impulse  and  the  quick- 
ening life  of  re-directed  desire,  the  natural  and  the 
spiritual  man,  are  conceptions  which  the  new  psy- 
chologist can  hardly  reject  or  despise.  True,  reli- 
gion and  psychology  may  offer  different  rationaliza- 
tions of  the  facts.  That  which  one  calls  original 
sin,  the  other  calls  the  instinctive  mind:  but  the  situ- 
ation each  puts  before  us  is  the  same.  *T  find  a 
law,"  says  St.  Paul,  "that  when  I  would  do  good 
evil  is  present  with  me.  For  I  delight  in  the  law  of 
God  after  the  inward  man  but  I  see  another  law  in 
my  members  warring  against  the  law  of  my 
mind.  .  .  .  With  the  mind  I  myself  serve  the  law 
of  God,  but  with  the  flesh  the  law  of  sin."  With- 
out going  so  far  as  a  distinguished  psychoanalyst 
who  said  in  my  hearing,  "If  St.  Paul  had  come  to  me, 
I  feel  I  could  have  helped  him,"  I  think  it  is  clear 
that  we  are  learning  to  give  a  new  content  to  this, 
and  many  other  sayings  of  the  New  Testament. 
More  and  more  psychology  tends  to  emphasize  the 
Pauline  distinction;  demonstrating  that  the  pro- 
found disharmony  existing  in  most  civilized  men  be- 
tween the  impulsive  and  the  rational  life,  the  many 
conflicts  which  sap  his  energy,  arise  from  the  per- 


82  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

sistence  within  us  of  the  archaic  and  primitive  along- 
side the  modern  mind.  It  demonstrates  that  the 
many  stages  and  constituents  of  our  psychic  past  are 
still  active  in  each  one  of  us;  though  often  below  the 
threshold  of  consciousness.  The  blindly  instinctive 
life,  with  its  almost  exclusive  interests  in  food, 
safety  and  reproduction;  the  law  of  the  flesh  in  its 
simplest  form,  carried  over  from  our  pre-human 
ancestry  and  still  capable  of  taking  charge  when  we 
are  off  our  guard.  The  more  complex  life  of  the 
human  primitive;  with  its  outlook  of  wonder,  self- 
interest  and  fear,  developed  under  conditions  of 
ignorance,  peril  and  perpetual  struggle  for  life. 
The  history  of  primitive  man  covers  millions  of 
years :  the  history  of  civilized  man,  a  few  thousand 
at  the  most.  Therefore  it  is  not  surprising  that  the 
primitive  outlook  should  have  bitten  hard  into  the 
plastic  stuff  of  the  developing  psyche,  and  forms  still 
the  infantile  foundation  of  our  mental  life.  Finally, 
there  is  the  rational  life,  so  far  as  the  rational  is 
yet  achieved  by  us;  correcting,  conflicting  with,  and 
seeking  to  refine  and  control  the  vigour  of  primitive 
impulse. 

But  if  it  is  to  give  an  account  of  all  the  facts 
psychology  must  also  point  out,  and  find  place  for, 
the  last-comer  in  the  evolutionary  series:  the  rare 
and  still  rudimentary  achievement  of  the  spiritual 
consciousness,  bearing  witness  that  we  are  the  chil- 
dren of  God,  and  pointing,  not  backward  to  the  roots 
but  onward  to  the  fruits  of  human  growth.      But  it 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      83 

cannot  allow  us  to  think  of  this  spiritual  life  as 
something  separate  from,  and  wholly  unconditioned 
by,  our  racial  past.  We  must  rather  conceive  it  as 
the  crown  of  our  psychic  evolution,  the  end  of  that 
process  which  began  in  the  dawn  of  consciousness 
and  which  St.  Paul  calls  "growing  up  into  the  stature 
of  Christ."  Here  psychology  is  in  harmony  with 
the  teaching  of  those  mystics  who  invite  us  to  rec- 
ognize, not  a  completed  spirit,  but  rather  a  seed 
within  us.  In  the  spiritual  yearnings,  the  profound 
and  yet  uncertain  stirrings  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness, its  half-understood  impulses  to  God,  we 
perceive  the  floating-up  into  the  conscious  field  of 
this  deep  germinal  life.  And  psychology  warns  us, 
I  think,  that  in  our  efforts  to  forward  the  upgrowth 
of  this  spiritual  life,  we  must  take  into  account  those 
earlier  types  of  reaction  to  the  universe  which  still 
continue  underneath  our  bright  modern  appearance, 
and  still  inevitably  condition  and  explain  so  many 
of  our  motives  and  our  deeds.  It  warns  us  that 
the  psychic  growth  of  humanity  is  slow  and  uneven ; 
and  that  every  one  of  us  still  retains,  though  not 
always  it  is  true  in  a  recognizable  form,  many  of 
the  characters  of  those  stages  of  development 
through  which  the  race  has  passed — characters  which 
inevitably  give  their  colour  to  our  religious  no  less 
than  to  our  social  life. 

"I  desire,"  says  a  Kempis,  "to  enjoy  thee  in- 
wardly but  I  cannot  take  thee.  I  desire  to  cleave 
to  heavenly  things  but  fleshly  things  and  unmortified 


84  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

passions  depress  me.  I  will  in  my  mind  be  above 
all  things  but  in  despite  of  myself  I  am  constrained 
to  be  beneath,  so  I  unhappy  man  fight  with  myself 
and  am  made  grievous  to  myself  while  the  spirit 
seeketh  what  is  above  and  the  flesh  what  is  be- 
neath. O  what  I  suffer  within  while  I  think  on 
heavenly  things  in  my  mind;  the  company  of  fleshly 
things  Cometh  against  me  when  I  pray."  ^ 

*'0h  Master,"  says  the  Scholar  in  Boehme's  great 
dialogue,  "the  creatures  that  live  in  me  so  withhold 
me,  that  I  cannot  wholly  yield  and  give  myself  up 
as  I  willingly  would."  ^ 

No  psychologist  has  come  nearer  to  a  statement 
of  the  human  situation  than  have  these  old  specialists 
in  the  spiritual  life. 

The  bearing  of  all  this  on  the  study  of  organized 
religion  is  of  course  of  great  importance;  and  will 
be  discussed  in  a  subsequent  section.  All  that  I 
wish  to  point  out  now  is  that  the  beliefs,  and  the 
explanations  of  action,  put  forward  by  our  rational- 
izing surface  consciousness  are  often  mere  veils 
which  drape  the  crudeness  of  our  real  desires  and 
reactions  to  life;  and  that  before  life  can  be  re- 
integrated about  its  highest  centres,  these  real  be- 
liefs and  motives  must  be  tracked  down,  and  their 
humiliating  character  acknowledged.  The  ape  and 
the  tiger,  in  fact,  are  not  dead  in  any  one  of  us. 
In  polite  persons  they  are  caged,  which  is  a  very 

iDe   Imit.    Christi,    Bk.    Ill,    Cap.    53. 
2  Boehme,  "The  Way  to  Christ,"  Pt.  IV. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      85 

different  thing:  and  a  careful  introspection  will  teach 
us  to  recognize  their  snarls  and  chatterings,  their 
urgent  requests  for  more  mutton  chops  or  bananas, 
under  the  many  disguises  which  they  assume — dis- 
guises which  are  not  infrequently  borrowed  from 
ethics  or  from  religion.  Thus  a  primitive  desire 
for  revenge  often  masquerades  as  justice,  and  an 
unedifying  interest  in  personal  safety  can  be  dis- 
cerned in  at  least  some  interpretations  of  atone- 
ment, and  some  aspirations  towards  immortality.  * 
I  now  go  on  to  a  second  point.  It  will  already  be 
clear  that  the  modern  conception  of  the  many-lev- 
elled psyche  gives  us  a  fresh  standpoint  from  which 
to  consider  the  nature  of  Sin.  It  suggests  to  us, 
that  the  essence  of  much  sin  is  conservatism,  or 
atavism:  that  it  is  rooted  in  the  tendency  of  the  in- 
stinctive life  to  go  on,  in  changed  circumstances, 
acting  in  the  same  old  way.  Virtue,  perfect  right- 
ness  of  correspondence  with  our  present  surround- 
ings, perfect  consistency  of  our  deeds  with  our  best 
ideas,  is  hard  work.  It  means  the  sublimation  of 
crude  instinct,  the  steady  control  of  impulse  by  such 
reason  as  we  possess ;  and  perpetually  forces  us  to 
use  on  new  and  higher  levels  that  machinery  of 
habit-formation,  that  power  of  implanting  tendencies 
in  the  plastic  psyche,  to  which  man  owes  his  earthly 
dominance.     When  our  unstable  psychic  life  relaxes 

1  Unamuso  has  not  hesitated  to  base  the  whole  of  religion  on  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation:  but  this  must  I  think  be  regarded  as 
an  exaggerated  view.  See  "The  Tragic  Sense  of  Life  in  Men 
and  in  Peoples,"  Caps.   3   and  4. 


86  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

tension  and  sinks  to  lower  levels  than  this,  and  it 
is  always  tending  so  to  do,  we  are  relapsing  to 
antique  methods  of  response,  suitable  to  an  environ- 
ment which  is  no  longer  there.  Few  people  go 
through  life  without  knowing  w'hat  it  ig  to  feel  a 
sudden,  even  murderous,  impulse  to  destroy  the  ob- 
stacle in  their  path;  or  seize,  at  all  costs,  that  which 
they  desire.  Our  ancestors  called  these  uprushes 
the  solicitations  of  the  devil,  seeking  to  destroy  the 
Christian  soul;  and  regarded  them  with  justice  as  an 
opportunity  of  testing  our  spiritual  strength.  It  is 
true  that  every  man  has  within  him  such  a  tempting 
spirit;  but  its  characters  can  better  be  studied  in  the 
Zoological  Gardens  than  in  the  convolutions  of  a 
theological  hell.  "External  Reason,"  says  Boehme, 
"supposes  that  hell  is  far  from  us.  But  it  is  near 
us.  Every  one  carries  it  in  himself."  ^  Many  of 
our  vices,  in  fact,  are  simply  savage  qualities — and 
some  are  even  savage  virtues — in  their  old  age. 
Thus  in  an  organized  society  the  acquisitiveness  and 
self-assertion  proper  to  a  vigorous  primitive  depen- 
dent on  his  own  powers  survive  as  the  sins  of  envy 
and  covetousness,  and  are  seen  operating  in  the 
dishonesty  of  the  burglar,  the  greed  and  egotism 
of  the  profiteer:  and,  on  the  highest  levels,  the 
great  spiritual  sin  of  pride  may  be  traced  back  to 
a  perverted  expression  of  that  self-regarding  instinct 
without  which  the  individual  could  hardly  survive. 
When  therefore  qualities  which  were  once  use- 

1  Boehme:  "Six  Theosophic  Points,"  p.   98. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      87 

ful  on  their  own  level  are  outgrown  but  unsubll- 
mated,  and  check  the  movement  towards  life's  spiri- 
tualization,  then — v/hatever  they  may  be — they  be- 
long to  the  body  of  death,  not  to  the  body  of  life, 
and  are  "sin."  "Call  sin  a  lump — none  other 
thing  than  thyself,"  says  "The  Cloud  of  Unknow- 
ing." ^  Capitulation  to  it  is  often  brought  about 
by  mere  slackness,  or,  as  religion  would  say,  by 
the  mortal  sin  of  sloth;  which  Julian  of  Norwich 
declares  to  be  one  of  the  two  most  deadly  sick- 
nesses of  the  soul.  Sometimes-,  too,  sin  is  deliber- 
ately indulged  in  because  of  the  perverse  satisfac- 
tion which  this  yielding  to  old  craving  gives  us.  The 
violent-tempered  man  becomes  once  more  a  primi- 
tive, when  he  yields  to  wrath.  A  starved  and  re- 
pressed side  of  his  nature — the  old  Adam,  in  fact 
— leaps  up  into  consciousness  and  glories  in  its 
strength.  He  obtains  from  the  explosion  an  im- 
mense feeling  of  relief;  and  so  too  with  the  other 
great  natural  passions  which  our  religious  or  social 
morality  keeps  in  check.  Even  the  saints  have 
known  these  revenges  of  natural  instincts  too  vi- 
olently denied.  Thoughts  of  obscene  words  and 
gestures  came  unasked  to  torment  the  pure  soul  of 
Catherine  of  Siena. ^  St.  Teresa  complained  that 
the  devil  sometimes  sent  her  so  offensive  a  spirit  of 
bad  temper  that  she  could  eat  people  up.^  Games 
and  sport  of  a  combative  or  destructive  kind  pro- 

1  "The   Cloud   of   Unknowing,"   Cap.   36. 

2  E.  Gardner:  "St.  Catherine  of  Siena,"  p.  20. 

3  "Life  of  St.  Teresa,"  by  Herself,  Cap.  30. 


88  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

vide  an  innocent  outlet  for  a  certain  amount  of  this 
unused  ferocity;  and  indeed  the  chief  function  of 
games  in  the  modern  state  is  to  help  us  avoid  oc- 
casions of  sin.  The  sinfulness  of  any  deed  depends, 
therefore,  on  this  theory,  on  the  extent  in  which  it  in- 
volves retrogression  from  the  point  we  have 
achieved:  failure  to  correspond  with  the  light  we 
possess.  The  inequality  of  the  moral  standard  all 
over  the  world  is  a  simple  demonstration  of  this 
fact:  for  many  a  deed  which  is  innocent  in  New 
Guinea,  would  in  London  provoke  the  immediate 
attention  of  the  police. 

Does  not  this  view  of  sin,  as  primarily  a  fall-back 
to  past  levels  of  conduct  and  experience,  a  defeat 
of  the  spirit  of  the  future  in  its  conflict  with  the  un- 
dying past,  give  us  a  fresh  standpoint  from  which 
to  look  at  the  idea  of  Salvation?  We  know  that 
all  religions  of  the  spirit  have  based  their  claim  upon 
man  on  such  an  offer  of  salvation :  on  the  conviction 
that  there  is  somethmg  from-  which  he  needs  to  be 
rescued,  if  he  is  to  achieve  a  satisfactory  life. 
What  is  it,  then,  from  which  he  must  be  saved? 

I  think  that  the  answer  must  be,  from  conflict: 
the  conflict  between  the  pull-back  of  his  racial  origin 
and  the  pull-forward  of  his  spiritual  destiny,  the 
antagonism  between  the  buried  Titan  and  the  emerg- 
ing soul,  each  tending  towards  adaptation  to  a  differ- 
ent order  of  reality.  We  may  as  well  acknowledge 
that  man  as  he  stands  is  mostly  full  of  conflicts  and 
resistances:  that  the  trite  verse  about  "fightings  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      89 

fears  within,  without"  does  really  describe  the  un- 
regenerate  yet  sensitive  mind  with  its  ineffective 
struggles,  its  inveterate  egotism,  its  inconsistent 
impulses  and  loves.  Man's  young  will  and  reason 
need  some  reinforcement,  some  helping  power,  if 
they  are  to  conquer  and  control  his  archaic  impulsive 
life.  And  this  salvation,  this  extrication  from  the 
wrongful  and  atavistic  claims  of  primitive  impulse  in 
its  many  strange  forms,  is  a  prime  business  of  reli- 
gion; sometimes  achieved  in  the  sudden  convulsion 
we  call  conversion,  and  sometimes  by  the  slower 
process  of  education.  The  wrong  way  to  do  it  is 
seen  in  the  methods  of  the  Puritan  and  the  extreme 
ascetic,  where  all  animal  impulse  is  regarded  as  "sin" 
and  repressed:  a  proceeding  which  involves  the  risk 
of  grave  physical  and  mental  disorder,  and  produces 
even  at  the  best  a  bloodless  pietism.  The  right  way 
to  do  it  was  described  once  for  all  by  Jacob  Boehme, 
when  he  said  that  it  was  the  business  of  a  spiritual 
man  to  "harness  his  fiery  energies  to  the  service  of 
the  light — "  that  is  to  say,  change  the  direction  of 
our  passionate  cravings  for  satisfaction,  harmonize 
and  devote  them  to  spiritual  ends.  This  is  true 
regeneration:  this  is  the  salvation  offered  to  man, 
the  healing  of  his  psychic  conflict  by  the  unification 
of  his  instinctive  and  his  ideal  life.  The  voice 
which  St.  Mechthild  heard,  saying  "Come  and  be 
reconciled,"  expresses  the  deepest  need  of  civilized 
but  unspiritualized  humanity. 

This  need  for  the  conversion  or  remaking  of  the 


90  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

instinctive  life,  rather  than  the  achievement  of  mere 
beliefs,  has  always  been  appreciated  by  real  spirit- 
ual teachers;  w'ho  are  usually  some  generations  in 
advance  of  the  psychologists.  Here  they  agree  in 
finding  the  "root  of  evil,"  the  heart  of  the  "old 
man"  and  best  promise  of  the  "new."  Here  is 
the  raw  material  both  of  vice  and  of  virtue — 
namely,  a  mass  of  desires  and  cravings  which  are 
in  themselves  neither  moral  nor  immoral,  but  nat- 
ural and  self-regarding.  "In  will,  imagination  and 
desire,"  says  William  Law,  "consists  the  life  or  fiery 
driving  of  every  intelligent  creature."  ^  The  Di- 
vine voice  which  said  to  Jacopone  da  Todi  "Set  love 
in  order,  thou  that  lovest  Me !"  declared  the  one  law 
of  mental  growth.^  To  use  for  a  moment  the 
language  of  mystical  theology,  conversion,  or  ref- 
pentance,  the  first  step  towards  the  spiritual  life, 
consists  in  a  change  in  the  direction  of  these  cravings 
and  desires;  purgation  or  purification,  in  which 
the  work  begun  in  conversion  is  made  complete,  in 
their  steadfast  setting  in  order  or  re-education,  and 
that  refinement  and  fixation  of  the  most  desirable 
among  them-  which  we  call  the  formation  of  habit, 
and  which  is  the  essence  of  character  building.  It  is 
from  this  hard,  conscious  and  deliberate  work  of 
adapting  our  psychic  energy  to  new  and  higher  cor- 
respondences, this  costly  moral  effort  and  true  self- 

1  "Liberal   and  Mystical  Writings  of  William  Law,"  p.  59. 

2  Jacopone  da  Todi,  Lauda  90. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      91 

conquest,  that  the  spiritual  life  in  man  draws  its  ear- 
nestness, reality  and  worth. 

"Oh,  Academicus,"  says  William  Law,  in  terms 
that  any  psychologist  would  endorse,  "forget  your 
scholarship,  give  up  your  art  and  criticism,  be  a 
plain  man;  and  then  the  first  rudiments  of  sense 
may  teach  you  that  there,  and  there  only,  can  good- 
ness be,  where  it  comes  forth  as  a  birth  of  Life, 
and  is  the  free  natural  work  and  fruit  of  that  which 
lives  within  us.  For  till  goodness  thus  comes  from 
a  Life  within  us,  we  have  in  truth  none  at  all.  For 
reason,  with  all  its  doctrine,  discipline,  and  rules, 
can  only  help  us  to  be  so  good,  so  changed,  and 
amended,  as  a  wild  beast  may  be,  that  by  restraints 
and  methods  is  taught  to  put  on  a  sort  of  tameness, 
though  its  wild  nature  is  all  the  time  only  restrained, 
and  in  a  readiness  to  break  forth  again  as  occasion 
shall  offer."  ^  Our  business,  then,  is  not  to  restrain, 
but  to  put  the  wild  beast  to  work,  and  use  its  mighty 
energies;  for  thus  only  shall  we  find  the  power  to 
perform  hard  acts.  See  the  young  Salvation  Army 
convert  turning  over  the  lust  for  drink  or  sexual  sat- 
isfaction to  the  lust  to  save  his  fellow-men.  This 
transformation  or  sublimation  is  not  the  work  of 
reason.  His  instinctive  life,  the  main  source  of 
conduct,  has  been  directed  into  a  fresh  channel  of 
use. 

We  may  now  look  a  little  more  closely  at  the  char- 

1  "Liberal  and  Mystical  Writings  of  William  Law,"  p.  123. 


92  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

acLer  and  potcntialties  of  our  instinctive  life:  for 
this  life  is  plainly  of  the  highest  importance  to  us, 
since  it  will  either  energize  or  thwart  all  the  efforts 
of  the  rational  self.  Current  psychology,  even  more 
plainly  than  religion,  encourages  us  to  recognize  in 
this  powerful  instinctive  nature  the  real  source  of 
our  conduct,  the  origin  of  all  those  dynamic  personal 
demands,  those  impulses  to  action,  which  condition 
the  full  and  successful  life  of  the  natural  man.  In- 
stincts in  the  animal  and  the  natural  man  are  the 
methods  by  which  the  life  force  takes  care  of  its  own 
interests,  insures  its  own  full  development,  its  un- 
impeded forward  drive.  In  so  far  as  we  form  part 
of  the  animal  kingdom  our  own  safety,  property, 
food,  dominance,  and  the  reproduction  of  our  own 
type,  are  inevitably  the  first  objects  of  our  instinctive 
care.  Civilized  life  has  disguised  some  of  these  crude 
demands  and  the  behaviour  which  is  inspired  by 
them,  but  their  essential  character  remains  un- 
changed. Love  and  hate,  fear  and  wonder,  self- 
assertion  and  self-abasement,  the  gregarious,  the 
acquisitive,  the  constructive  tendencies,  are  all  ex- 
pressions of  instinctive  feeling;  and  can  be  traced 
back  to  our  simplest  animal  needs. 

But  instincts  are  not  fixed  tendencies:  they  are 
adaptable.  This  can  be  seen  clearly  in  the  case  of 
animals  whose  environment  is  artificially  changed. 
In  the  dog,  for  instance,  loyalty  to  the  interests  of 
the  pack  has  become  loyalty  to  his  master's  house- 
hold.    In  man,  too,  there  has  already  been  obvious 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      93 

modification  and  sublimation  of  many  instincts. 
The  hunting  impulse  begins  in  the  jungle,  and  may 
end  in  the  philosopher's  exploration  of  the  Infinite. 
It  is  the  combative  instinct  which  drives  the  reformer 
headlong  against  the  evils  of  the  world,  as  It  once 
drove  two  cave  men  at  each  others'  throats.  Love, 
which  begins  in  the  mergence  of  two  cells,  ends  in 
the  saint's  supreme  discovery,  "Thou  art  the  Love 
wherewith  the  heart  loves  Thee."  ^  The  much  ad- 
vertized herd  instinct  may  weld  us  into  a  mob  at 
the  mercy  of  unreasoning  passions;  but  it  can  also 
make  us  living  members  of  the  Communion  of 
Saints.  The  appeals  of  the  prophet  and  the  reviv- 
alist, the  Psalmist's  "Taste  and  see,"  the  Baptist's 
"Change  your  hearts,"  are  all  invitations  to  an 
alteration  in  the  direction  of  desire,  which  would 
turn  our  instinctive  energies  in  a  new  direction  and 
begin  the  domestication  of  the  human  soul  for  God. 
This,  then,  is  the  real  business  of  conversion 
and  of  the  character  building  that  succeeds  it;  the 
harnessing  of  instinct  to  idea  and  its  direction  into 
new  and  more  lofty  channels  of  use,  transmuting 
the  turmoil  of  man's  merely  egoistic  ambitions, 
anxieties  and  emotional  desires  into  fresh  forms  of 
creative  energy,  and  transferring  their  interest  from 
narrow  and  unreal  to  universal  objectives.  The 
seven  deadly  sins  of  Christian  ethics — Pride,  Anger, 
Envy,  Avarice,  Sloth,  Gluttony,  and  Lust — repre- 

1  "Amor   tu    se'quel    ama 
donde  lo  cor  te  ama." 

— Jacopone  da  Todi:  Lauda  8i. 


94  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

sent  not  so  much  deliberate  wrongfulness,  as  the 
outstanding  forms  of  man's  uncontrolled  and  self- 
regarding  instincts;  unbridled  self-assertion,  ruth- 
less acquisitiveness,  and  undisciplined  indulgence  of 
sense.  The  traditional  evangelical  virtues  of 
Poverty,  Chastity  and  Obedience  which  sum  up  the 
demands  of  the  spiritual  life  exactly  oppose  them. 
Over  against  the  self-assertion  of  the  proud  and 
angry  is  set  the  ideal  of  humble  obedience,  with  its 
wise  suppleness  and  abnegation  of  self-will.  Over 
against  the  acquisitiveness  of  the  covetous  and 
envious  is  set  the  ideal  of  inward  poverty,  with  its 
'  liberation  from  the  narrow  self-interest  of  I,  Me 
and  Mine.  Over  against  the  sensual  indulgence  of 
the  greedy,  lustful  and  lazy  is  set  the  Ideal  of 
chastity,  which  finds  all  creatures  pure  to  enjoy, 
since  It  sees  them  in  God,  and  God  In  all  creatures. 
Yet  all  this,  rightly  understood.  Is  no  mere  policy 
of  repression.  It  is  rather  a  rational  policy  of  re- 
lease, freeing  for  higher  activities  instinctive  force 
too  often  thrown  away.  It  Is  giving  the  wild  beast 
his  work  to  do,  training  him.  Since  the  instincts 
represent  the  efforts  of  this  urgent  life  in  us  to 
achieve  self-protection  and  self-realization,  it  is 
plain  that  the  true  regeneration  of  the  psyche,  its 
redirection  from  lower  to  higher  levels,  can 
never  be  accomplished  without  their  help.  We  only 
rise  to  the  top  of  our  powers  when  the  whole  man 
acts  together,  urged  by  an  enthusiasm  or  an  instinc- 
tive need. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      95 

Further,  a  complete  and  ungraduated  response 
to  stimulus — an  "all-or-none  reaction" — is  charac- 
teristic of  the  instinctive  life  and  of  the  instinctive 
life  alone.  Those  whom  it  rules  for  the  time  give 
themselves  wholly  to  it;  and  so  display  a  power  far 
beyond  that  of  the  critical  and  the  controlled. 
Thus,  fear  or  rage  will  often  confer  abnormal 
strength  and  agility.  A  really  dominant  instinct  is  a 
veritable  source  of  psycho-physical  energy,  unifying 
and  maintaining  in  vigour  all  the  activities  directed 
to  its  fulfilment.^  A  young  man  in  love  is  stimulated 
not  only  to  emotional  ardour,  but  also  to  hard  work 
in  the  interests  of  the  future  home.  The  explorer 
develops  amazing  powers  of  endurance;  the  inven- 
tor in  the  ecstasy  of  creation  draws  on  deep  vital 
forces,  and  may  carry  on  for  long  periods  without 
sleep  or  food.  If  we  apply  this  law  to  the  great 
examples  of  the  spiritual  life,  we  see  in  the  vigour 
and  totality  of  their  self-giving  to  spiritual  interests 
a  mark  of  instinctive  action;  and  in  the  power,  the 
indifference  to  hardship  which  these  selves  develop, 
the  result  of  unification,  of  an  "all-or-none"  response 
to  the  religious  or  philanthropic  stimulus.  It  helps 
us  to  understand  the  cheerful  austerities  of  the 
true  ascetic;  the  superhuman  achievement  of  St. 
Paul,  little  hindered  by  the  "thorn  in  the  flesh"; 
the  career  of  St.  Joan  of  Arc;  the  way  in  which  St. 
Teresa  or  St.  Ignatius,  tormented  by  ill-health,  yet 

1  Cf.   Watts:   "Echo   Personalities,"   for   several    illustrations   of 
this  law. 


96  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

brought  their  great  conceptions  to  birth;  the  powers 
of  resistance  displayed  by  George  Fox  and  other 
Quaker  saints.  It  explains  Mary  Slessor  liv- 
ing and  working  bare-foot  and  bare-headed  under 
the  tropical  sun,  disdaining  the  use  of  mosquito  nets, 
eating  native  food,  and  taking  with  impunity  daily 
risks  fatal  to  the  average  European.^  It  shows  us, 
too,  why  the  great  heroes  of  the  spiritual  life  so 
seldom  think  out  their  positions,  or  husband  their 
powers.  They  act  because  they  are  impelled: 
often  in  defiance  of  all  prudent  considerations, 
yet  commonly  with  an  amazing  success.  Thus 
General  Booth  has  said  that  he  was  driven  by  "the 
impulses  and  urgings  of  an  undying  ambition"  to 
save  souls.  What  was  this  impulse  and  urge? 
It  was  the  instinctive  energy  of  a  great  nature  in  a 
sublimated  form.  The  level  at  which  this  enhanced 
power  is  experienced  will  determine  its  value  for 
life;  but  its  character  is  much  the  same  in  the  con- 
vert at  a  revival,  in  the  postulant's  vivid  sense  of 
vocation  and  consequent  break  with  the  world,  in 
the  disinterested  man  of  science  consecrated  to  the 
search  for  truth,  and  in  the  apostle's  self-giving  to 
the  service  of  God,  with  its  answering  gift  of  new 
strength  and  fruitfulness.  Its  secret,  and  indeed 
the  secret  of  all  transcendence  is  implied  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  old  English  mystic:  "Mean  God  all, 
and  all  God,  so  that  nour^ht  work  in  thy  wit  and 
in  thy  will,  but  only  God."  ^     The  over-belief,  the 

J  Livingstone:   "Mary   Slessor   of   Calabar,"    p.    131. 
^  "The  Cloud  of  Unknowing,"   Cap.  40. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      97 

religious  formula  in  which  this  instinctive  passion 
is  expressed,  is  comparatively  unimportant.  The  re- 
vivalist, wholly  possessed  by  concrete  and  anthro- 
pomorphic ideas  of  God  which  are  impossible  to 
a  man  of  different — and,  as  we  suppose,  superior — 
education,  can  yet,  because  of  the  burning  reality 
with  which  he  lives  towards  the  God  so  strangely 
conceived,  infect  those  with  whom  he  comes  in  con- 
tact with  the  spiritual  life. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  say  that  the  first  ne- 
cessity of  the  life  of  the  Spirit  is  the  sublimation  of 
the  instinctive  life,  involving  the  transfer  of  our  in- 
terest and  energy  to  new  objectives,  the  giving  of 
our  old  vigour  to  new  longings  and  new  loves.  It 
appears  that  the  invitation  of  religion  to  a  change 
of  heart,  rather  than  a  change  of  belief,  is  founded 
on  solid  psychological  laws.  I  need  not  dwell  on 
the  way  in  which  Divine  love,  as  the  saints  have 
understood  it,  answers  to  the  complete  sublimation 
of  our  strongest  natural  passion;  or  the  extent  in 
which  the  highest  experiences  of  the  religious  life 
satisfy  man's  instinctive  craving  for  self-realization 
within  a  greater  Reality,  how  he  feels  himself  to  be 
fed  with  a  mysterious  food,  quickened  by  a  fresh 
dower  of  life,  assured  of  his  own  safety  within 
a  friendly  universe,  given  a  new  objective  for  his 
energy.  It  is  notorious  that  one  of  the  most 
striking  things  about  a  truly  spiritual  man  is,  that 
he  has  achieved  a  certain  stability  which  others  lack. 
In  him,  the  central  craving  of  the  psyche  for  more 


98  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

life  and  more  love  has  reached  its  bourne;  instead 
of  feeding  upon  those  secondary  objects  of  desire 
which  may  lull  our  restlessness  but  cannot  heal  it. 
He  loves  the  thing  which  he  ought  to  love,  wants  to 
do  the  deeds  which  he  ought  to  do,  and  finds  all  as- 
pects of  his  personality  satisfied  in  one  objective. 
Every  one  has  really  a  forced  option  between  the 
costly  effort  to  achieve  this  sublimation  of  impulse, 
this  unification  of  the  self  on  spiritual  levels,  and 
the  quiet  evasion  of  it  which  is  really  a  capitulation 
to  the  animal  instincts  and  unordered  cravings  of 
our  many-levelled  being.  We  cannot  stand  still; 
and  this  steady  downward  pull  keeps  us  ever  in 
mind  of  all  the  backward-tending  possibilities  col- 
lectively to  be  thought  of  as  sin,  and  explains  to  us 
why  sloth,  lack  of  spiritual  energy,  is  held  by  re- 
ligion to  be  one  of  the  capital  forms  of  human 
wrongness. 

I  go  on  to  another  point,  which  I  regard  as  of 
special  importance. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  life  of  the  Spirit 
begins  and  ends  with  the  sublimation  of  the  in- 
stinctive and  emotional  life;  though  this  is  Indeed 
for  it  a  central  necessity.  Nor  must  we  take  it  for 
granted  that  the  apparent  redirection  of  impulse  to 
spiritual  objects  is  always  and  inevitably  an  advance. 
AH  who  are  or  may  be  concerned  with  the  spiritual 
training,  help,  and  counselling  of  others  ought 
clearly  to  recognize  that  there  are  elements  in  re- 
ligious experience  which  represent,  not  a  true  sub- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT      99 

llmation,  but  either  disguised  primitive  cravings  and 
ideas,  or  uprushes  from  lower  instinctive  levels :  for 
these  experiences  have  their  special  dangers.  As 
we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  their  more  detailed 
study,  devotional  practices  tend  to  produce  that 
state  which  psychologists  call  mobility  of  the 
threshold  of  consciousness;  and  may  easily  permit 
the  emergence  of  natural  inclinations  and  desires, 
of  which  the  self  does  not  recognize  the  real  char- 
actefr.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  good  deal  of  religious 
emotion  is  of  this  kind.  Instances  are  the  childish 
longing  for  mere  protection,  for  a  sort  of  super- 
sensual  petting,  the  excessive  desire  for  shelter  and 
rest,  voiced  in  too  many  popular  hymns;  the  subtle 
form  of  self-assertion  which  can  be  detected  in  some 
claims  to  intercourse  with  God — e.  g.  the  celebrated 
conversation  of  Angela  of  Foligno  with  the  Holy 
Ghost;  ^  the  thinly  veiled  human  feelings  which  find 
expression  in  the  personal  raptures  of  a  certain  type 
of  pious  literature,  and  in  what  has  been  well 
described  as  the  "divine  duet"  type  of  devotion. 
Many,  though  not  all  of  the  supernormal  phenom- 
ena of  mysticism  are  open  to  the  same  suspicion: 
and  the  Church's  constant  insistence  on  the  need  of 
submitting  these  to  some  critical  test  before  accept- 
ing them  at  face  value,  Is  based  on  a  most  whole- 
some scepticism.     Though  a  sense  of  meek  depen- 

i"And  very  often  did  He  say  unto  me,  'Bride  and  daughter, 
sweet  art  thou  unto  Me,  I  love  thee  better  than  any  other  who 
is  in  the  valley  of  Spoleto.'  "  ("The  Divine  Consolations  of  Blessed 
Angela   of    Foligno,"   p.    i6o.) 


100  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

dence  on  enfolding  love  and  power  is  the  very 
heart  of  religion,  and  no  intense  spiritual  life  is 
possible  unless  it  contain  a  strong  emotional  element, 
it  is  of  first  importance  to  be  sure  that  its  affective 
side  represents  a  true  sublimation  of  human  feel- 
ings and  desires,  and  not  merely  an  oblique  in- 
dulgence of  lower  cravings. 

Again,  we  have  to  remember  that  the  Instinctive 
self,  powerful  though  it  be,  does  not  represent  the 
sum  total  of  human  possibility.  The  maximum  of 
man's  strength  is  not  reached  until  all  the  self's 
powers,  the  instinctive  and  also  the  rational,  are 
united  and  set  on  one  objective;  for  then  only  is  he 
safe  from  the  insidious  inner  conflict  between 
natural  craving  and  conscious  purpose  which  saps 
his  energies,  and  is  welded  into  a  complete  and 
harmonious  instrument  of  life.  "The  source  of 
power,"  says  Dr.  Hadfield  in  "The  Spirit,"  lies  not 
in  Instinctive  emotion  alone,  but  in  instinctive  emo- 
tiqin  expressed  in  a  way  with  which  the  whole  man 
can,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  identify  himself. 
Ultimately,  this  is  impossible  without  the  achieve- 
ment of  a  harmony  of  all  the  instincts  and  the  ap- 
proval of  the  reason."  ^ 

Thus  we  see  that  any  unresolved  conflict  or 
divorce  between  the  religious  instinct  and  the  in- 
tellect will  mar  the  full  power  of  the  spiritual  life: 
and  that  an  essential  part  of  the  self's  readjustment 
to    reality    must    consist    in    the    uniting    of    these 

i"The  Spirit,"   edited  by  B.   H.   Streeter,  p.  93. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     101 

partners,  as  intellect  and  intuition  are  united  in 
creative  art.  The  noblest  music,  most  satisfying 
poetry  are  neither  the  casual  results  of  uncriticized 
in^iration  nor  the  deliberate  fabrications  of  the 
brain,  but  are  born  of  the  perfect  fusion  of  feel- 
ing and  of  thought;  for  the"  greatest  and  most  fruit- 
ful minds  are  those  which  are  rich  and  active  on 
both  levels — which  are  perpetually  raising  blind 
impulse  to  the  level  of  conscious  purpose,  uniting 
energy  with  skill,  and  thus  obtaining  the  fiery  en- 
ergies of  the  instinctive  life  for  the  highest  uses. 
So  too  the  spiritual  life  is  only  seen  in  its  full  worth 
and  splendour  when  the  whole  man  is  subdued  to 
it,  and  one  Object  satisfies  the  utmost  desires  of 
heart  and  mind.  The  spiritual  impulse  must  not  be 
allowed  to  become  the  centre  of  a  group  of 
specialized  feelings,  a  devotional  complex,  in  opposi- 
tion to,  or  at  least  alienated  from,  the  intellectual 
and  economic  life.  It  must  on  the  contrary  brim 
over,  invading  every  department  of  the  self.  When 
the  mind's  loftiest  and  most  ideal  thought,  its 
conscious  vivid  aspiration,  has  been  united  with  the 
more  robust  qualities  of  the  natural  man;  then,  and 
only  then,  we  have  the  material  for  the  making  of 
a  possible  saint. 

We  must  also  remember  that,  important  as  our 
primitive  and  instinctive  life  may  be — and  we 
should  neither  despise  nor  neglect  it — its  religious 
impulses,  taken  alone,  no  more  represent  the  full 
range  of  man's  spiritual  possibilities  than  the  life 


102  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

of  the  hunting  tribe  or  the  African  kraal  represent 
his  full  social  possibilities.  We  may,  and  should, 
acknowledge  and  learn  from  our  psychic  origins. 
We  must  never  be  content  to  rest  in  them.  Though 
in  many  respects,  mental  as  well  as  physical,  we  are 
animals  still;  yet  we  are  animals  with  a  possible 
future  in  the  making,  both  corporate  and  individual, 
which  we  cannot  yet  define.  All  other  levels  of 
life  assure  us  that  the  impulsive  nature  is  peculiarly 
susceptible  to  education.  Not  only  can  the  whole 
group  of  instincts  which  help  self-fulfilment  be  di- 
rected to  higher  levels,  united  and  subdued  to  a 
dominant  emotional  interest;  but  merely  instinctive 
actions  can,  by  repetition  and  control,  be  raised  to 
the  level  of  habit  and  be  given  improved  precision 
and  complexity.  This,  of  course,  is  a  primary  func- 
tion of  devotional  exercises;  training  the  first  blind 
instinct  for  God  to  the  complex  responses  of  the 
life  of  prayer.  Instinct  is  at  best  a  rough  and 
ready  tool  of  life:  practice  is  required  if  it  is  to 
produce  its  best  results.  Observe,  for  instance, 
the  poor  efforts  of  the  young  bird  to  escape  capture; 
and  compare  this  with  the  finished  performance  of 
the  parent.  ^  Therefore  in  estimating  man's  ca- 
pacity for  spiritual  response,  we  must  reckon  not 
only  his  innate  instinct  for  God,  but  also  his  capacity 
for  developing  this  instinct  on  the  level  of  habit; 
educating  and  using  its  latent  powers  to  the  best 
advantage.     Especially   on   the   contemplative   side 

1  Cf.  B.  Russell:  "The  Analysis  of  Mind,"  Cap.  2. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     103 

of  life,  education  does  great  things  for  us;  or  would 
do,  if  we  gave  it  the  chance.  Here,  then,  the  ra- 
tional mind  and  conscious  will  must  play  their  part 
in  that  great  business  of  human  transcendence, 
which  Is  man's  function  within  the  universal  plan. 

It  is  true  that  the  deep-seated  human  tendency  to 
God  may  best  be  understood  as  the  highest  form  of 
that  out-going  instinctive  craving  of  the  psyche  for 
more  life  and  love  which,  on  whatever  level  it  be 
experienced,  Is  always  one.  But  some  external 
stimulus  seems  to  be  needed,  if  this  deep  tendency 
is  to  be  brought  up  Into  consciousness;  and  some  ed- 
ucation, if  It  is  to  be  fully  expressed.  This  stimulus 
and  this  education,  in  normal  cases,  are  given  by 
tradition;  that  is  to  say,  by  religious  belief  and 
practice.  Or  they  may  come  from  the  countless 
minor  and  cumulative  suggestions  which  life  makes 
to  us,  and  which  few  of  us  have  the  subtlety  to 
analyze.  If  these  suggestions  of  tradition  or  en- 
vironment are  met  by  resistance,  either  of  the  moral 
or  intellectual  order,  whilst  yet  the  deep  instinct  for 
full  life  remains  unsatisfied,  the  result  is  an  inner 
conflict  of  more  or  less  severity;  and  as  a  rule,  this 
is  only  resolved  and  harmony  achieved  through  the 
crisis  of  conversion,  breaking  down  resistances,  lib- 
erating emotion  and  reconciling  Inner  craving  with 
outer  stimulus.  There  Is,  however,  nothing  spir- 
itual in  the  conversion  process  itself.  It  has  its 
parallel  in  other  drastic  readjustments  to  other 
levels   of  life;  and  is  merely  a  method  by  which 


104  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

selves  of  a  certain  type  seem  best  able  to  achieve 
the  union  of  feeling,  thought,  and  will  necessary 
to  stability. 

Now  we  have  behind  us  and  within  us  all  hu- 
manity's funded  instinct  for  the  Divine,  all  the  racirJ 
habits  and  traditions  of  response  to  the  Divine. 
But  Its  valid  thought  about  the  Divine  comes  as  yet 
to  very  little.  Thus  we  see  that  the  author  of 
"The  Cloud  of  Unknowing"  spoke  as  a  true 
psychologist  when  he  said  that  "a  secret  blind  love 
pressing  towards  God"  held  more  hope  of  success 
than  mere  thought  can  ever  do;  "for  He  may  well 
be  loved  but  not  thought — by  love  He  may  be  gotten 
and  holden,  but  by  thought  never."  ^  Neverthe- 
less, If  that  consistency  of  deed  and  belief  which 
is  essential  to  full  power  Is  to  be  achieved  by  us, 
every  man's  conception  of  the  God  Whom  he  serves 
ought  to  be  the  very  best  of  which  he  is  capable. 
Because  Ideas  which  we  recogfiize  as  partial  or 
primitive  have  called  forth  the  richness  and  devo- 
tion of  other  natures,  we  are  not  therefore  excused 
from  trying  all  things  and  seeking  a  Reality  which 
fulfils  to  the  utmost  our  craving  for  truth  and 
beauty,  as  well  as  our  Instinct  for  good.  It  Is  easy, 
natural,  and  always  comfortable  for  the  human 
mind  to  sink  back  Into  something  just  a  little  bit 
below  Its  highest  possible.  On  one  hand  to  wallow 
In  easy  loves,  rest  in  traditional  formulas,  or  enjoy 
a   "moving  type  of  devotion  which  makes  no  In- 

1  Op.   cit.,   Cap.   6. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT    105 

tellectual  demand.  On  the  other,  to  accept  without 
criticism  the  sceptical  attitude  of  our  neighbours, 
and  keep  safely  in  the  furrow  of  intelligent  agnos- 
ticism. 

Religious  people  have  a  natural  inclination  to 
trot  along  on  mediocre  levels;  reacting  pleasantly 
to  all  the  usual  practices,  playing  down  to  the  hopes 
and  fears  of  the  primitive  mind,  its  childish  craving 
for  comfort  and  protection,  its  tendency  to  rest  in 
symbols  and  spells,  and  satisfying  its  devotional  in- 
clinations by  any  "long  psalter  unmindfully  mumbled 
in  the  teeth."  ^  And  a  certain  type  of  intelligent 
people  have  an  equally  natural  tendency  to  dismiss, 
without  further  worry,  the  traditional  notions  of 
the  past.  In  so  far  as  all  this  represents  a  slipping 
back  in  the  racial  progress,  it  has  the  character 
of  sin:  at  any  rate,  it  lacks  the  true  character  of 
spiritual  life.  Such  life  involves  growth,  sublima- 
tion, the  constant  and  difficult  redirection  of  en- 
ergy from  lower  to  higher  levels;  a  real  effort  to 
purge  motive,  see  things  more  truly,  face  and  resolve 
the  conflict  between  the  deep  instinctive  and  the 
newer  rational  life.  Hence,  those  who  realize  the 
nature  of  their  own  mental  processes  sin  against 
the  light  if  they  do  not  do  with  them  the  very  best 
that  they  possibly  can:  and  the  penalty  of  this  sin 
must  be  a  narrowing  of  vision,  an  arrest.  The 
laws  of  apperception  apply  with  at  least  as  much 
force  to  our  spiritual  as  to  our  sensual  impressions : 

1  "The   Cloud   of  Unknowing,"    Cap.   37. 


106  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

what   we    bring   with    us   will    condition   what   we 
obtain. 

"We  behold  that  which  we  are!"  said  Ruysbroeck 
long  ago.  ^  The  mind's  content  and  its  ruling  feel- 
ing-tone, says  psychology,  all  its  memories  and 
desires,  mingle  with  all  incoming  impressions,  colour 
them  and  condition  those  which  our  consciousness 
selects.  This  intervention  of  memory  and  emotion 
in  our  perceptions  is  entirely  involuntary;  and  ex- 
plains why  the  devotee  of  any  specific  creed  always 
finds  in  the  pure  immediacy  of  religious  experience 
the  special  marks  of  his  own  belief.  In  most  acts 
of  perception — and  probably,  too,  in  the  intuitional 
awareness  of  religious  experience — that  which  the 
mind  brings  is  bulkier  if  less  important  than  that 
which  it  receives;  and  only  the  closest  analysis  will 
enable  us  to  separate  these  two  elements.  Yet  this 
machinery  of  apperception — humbling  though  its 
realization  must  be  to  the  eager  idealist — does  not 
merely  confuse  the  issue  for  us;  or  compel  us  to 
agnosticism  as  to  the  true  content  of  religious  in- 
tuition. On  the  contrary,  its  comprehension  gives 
us  the  clue  to  many  theological  puzzles;  whilst  its 
existence  enables  us  to  lay  hold  of  supersensual  ex- 
periences we  should  otherwise  miss,  because  it  gives 
to  us  the  means  of  interpreting  them.  Pure  im- 
mediacy, as  such,  is  almost  ungraspable  by  us.  As 
man,  not  as  pure  spirit,  the  High  Priest  entered  the 
Holy  of  Holies:  that  is  to  say,  he  took  to  the  en- 

1  Ruysbroeck:  "The  Sparkling  Stone,"  Cap.  9- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     107 

counter  of  the  Infinite  the  finite  machinery  of  sense. 
This  limitation  is  ignored  by  us  at  our  peril.  The 
great  mystics,  who  have  sought  to  strip  oft  all  image 
and  reach — as  they  say — the  Bare  Pure  Truth,  have 
merely  become  inarticulate  in  their  effort  to  tell 
us  what  it  was  that  they  knew.  "A  light  I 
cannot -measure,  goodness  without  form!"  exclaims 
Jacopone  da  Todi.  ^  "The  Light  of  the  JForld — 
the  Good  Shepherd,"  says  St.  John,  bringing  a  richly 
furnished  poetic  consciousness  to  the  vision  of  God; 
and  at  once  gives  us  something  on  which  to  lay 
hold.      ' 

Generally  speaking,  it  is  only  in  so  far  as  we 
bring  with  us  a  plan  of  the  universe  that  we  can 
make  anything  of  it;  and  only  in  so  far  as  we  bring 
with  us  some  idea  of  God,  some  feeling  of  desire 
for  Him,  can  we  apprehend  Him — so  true  is  it  that 
we  do,  indeed,  behold  that  which  we  are,  find  that 
which  we  seek,  receive  that  for  which  we  ask. 
Feeling,  thought,  and  tradition  must  all  contribute 
to  the  full  working  out  of  religious  experience. 
The  empty  soul  facing  an  unconditioned  Reality 
may  achieve  freedom  but  assuredly  achieves  nothing 
else:  for  though  the  self-giving  of  Spirit  is  abun- 
dant, we  control  our  own  powers  of  reception. 
This  lays  on  each  self  the  duty  of  filling  the  mind 
with  the  noblest  possible  thoughts  about  God,  re- 
fusing unworthy  and  narrow  conceptions,  and  keep- 
ing alight  the  fire  of  His  love.     We  shall  find  that 

^  Lauda  91. 


108  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

which  we  seek:  hence  a  richly  stored  religious 
consciousness,  the  lofty  conceptions  of  the  truth 
seeker,  the  vision  of  the  artist,  the  boundless  charity 
and  joy  In  life  of  the  lover  of  his  kind,  really  con- 
tribute to  the  fulness  of  the  spiritual  life;  both  on 
its  active  and  on  its  contemplative  side.  As  the 
self  reaches  the  first  degrees  of  the  prayerful  or 
recollected  state,  memory-elements,  released  from 
the  competition  of  realistic  experience,  enter  the 
foreconsclous  field.  Among  these  will  be  the  stored 
remembrances  of  past  meditations,  reading,  and  ex- 
periences, all  giving  an  affective  tone  conducive  to 
new  and  deeper  apprehensions.  The  pure  in  heart 
see  God,  because  they  bring  with  them  that  radiant 
and  undemanding  purity:  because  the  storehouse  of 
ancient  memories,  which  each  of  us  inevitably  brings 
to  that  encounter,  is  free  from  conflicting  desires 
and  images,  perfectly  controlled  by  this  feeling-tone. 
It  is  now  clear  that  all  which  we  have  so  far 
considered  supports,  from  the  side  of  psychology, 
the  demand  of  every  religion  for  a  drastic  over- 
haul of  the  elements  of  character,  a  real  repentance 
and  moral  purgation,  as  the  beginning  of  all  per- 
sonal spiritual  life.  Man  does  not,  as  a  rule,  reach 
without  much  effort  and  suffering  the  higher  levels 
of  his  psychic  being.  His  old  attachments  are  hard; 
complexes  of  which  he  is  hardly  aware  must  be 
broken  up  before  he  can  use  the  forces  which  they 
enchain.  He  must,  then,  examine  without  flinch- 
ing  his   impulsive   life,    and  know   what   is   in  his 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     109 

heart,  before  he  is  in  a  position  to  change  it.  "The 
light  which  shows  us  our  sins,"  says  George  Fox, 
"is  the  light  that  heals  us."  All  those  repressed 
cravings,  those  quietly  unworthy  motives,  those 
mean  acts  which  we  instinctively  thrust  into  the 
hiddenness  and  disguise  or  forget,  must  be  brought 
to  the  surface  and,  in  the  language  of  psychology, 
"abreacted";  in  the  language  of  religion,  confessed. 
The  whole  doctrine  of  repentance  really  hinges  on 
this  question  of  abreacting  painful  or  wrongful  ex- 
perience instead  of  repressing  it.  The  broken  and 
contrite  heart  is  the  heart  of  which  the  hard  com- 
plexes have  been  shattered  by  sorrow  and  love,  and 
their  elements  brought  up  into  consciousness  and 
faced:  and  only  the  self  which  has  endured  this,  can 
hope  to  be  established  in  the  free  Spirit.  It  is  a 
process  of  spiritual  hygiene. 

Psycho-analysis  has  taught  us  the  danger  of  keep- 
ing skeletons  in  the  cupboards  of  the  soul,  the  im- 
portance of  tracking  down  our  real  motives,  of 
facing  reality,  of  being  candid  and  fearless  in  self- 
knowledge.  But  the  emotional  colour  of  this  process 
when  it  is  undertaken  in  the  full  conviction  of  the 
power  and  holiness  of  that  life-force  which  we  have 
not  used  as  well  as  we  might,  and  with  a  humble 
and  loving  consciousness  of  our  deficiency,  our  fall- 
ing short,  will  be  totally  different  from  the  feeling 
state  of  those  who  conceive  themselves  to  be  search- 
ing for  the  merely  animal  sources  of  their  mental 
and  spiritual  life.     "Meekness  in  itself,"  says  "The 


no  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

Cloud  of  Unknowing,"  is  naught  else  but  a  true 
knowing  and  feeling  of  a  man's  self  as  he  is.  'For 
surely  whoso  might  verily  see  and  feel  himself  as 
he  is,  he  should  verily  be  meek.  Therefore  swink 
and  sweat  all  that  thou  canst  and  mayst  for  to  get 
thee  a  true  knowing  and  feeling  of  thyself  as  thou 
art;  and  then  I  trow  that  soon  after  that  thou  shalt 
have  a  true  knowing  and  feeling  of  God  as  he  is."  ^ 
The  essence,  then,  of  repentance  and  purifica- 
tion of  character  consists  first  in  the  identification, 
and  next  in  the  sublimation  of  our  instinctive  powers 
and  tendencies;  their  detachment  from  egoistic 
desires  and  dedication  to  new  purposes.  We 
should  not  starve  or  repress  the  abounding  life 
within  us;  but,  relieving  it  of  its  concentration  on 
the  here-and-now,  give  its  attention  and  its  passion  a 
wider  circle  of  interest  over  which  to  range,  a 
greater  love  to  which  it  can  consecrate  its  growing 
powers.  We  do  not  yet  know  what  the  limit  of 
such  sublimation  may  be.  But  we  do  know  that  it 
is  the  true  path  of  life's  advancement,  that  already 
we  owe  to  it  our  purest  loves,  our  loveliest  visions, 
and  our  noblest  deeds.  When  such  feeling,  such 
vision  and  such  act  are  united  and  transfigured  in 
God,  and  find  in  contact  with  His  living  Spirit  the 
veritable  sources  of  their  power;  then,  man  will 
have  resolved  his  inner  conflict,  developed  his  true 
potentialities,  and  live  a  harmonious  because  a  spir- 
itual life. 

1  Op.  cit.,  Cap.  13. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIFJT     111 

We  end,  therefore,  upon  this  conception  of  the 
psyche  as  the  living  force  within  us;  a  storehouse 
of  ancient  memories  and  animal  tendencies,  yet  plas- 
tic, adaptable,  ever  pressing  on  and  ever  craving 
for  more  life  and  more  love.  Only  the  life  of  real- 
ity, the  life  rooted  in  communion  with  God,  will 
ever  satisfy  that  hungry  spirit,  or  provide  an  -ad- 
equate objective  for  its  persistent  onward  push. 


CHAPTER  IV 

PSYCHOLOGY   AND   THE    LIFE   OF   THE    SPIRIT 

(II)   Contemplation  and  Suggestion 

In  the  last  chapter  we  considered  what  the  mod- 
ern analysis  of  mind  had  to  tell  us  about  the  nature 
of  the  spiritual  life,  the  meaning  of  sin  and  of  salva- 
tion. We  now  go  on  to  another  aspect  of  this 
subject:  namely,  the  current  conception  of  the  un- 
conscious mind  as  a  dominant  factor  of  our  psychic 
life,  and  of  the  extent  and  the  conditions  in  which  its 
resources  can  be  tapped,  and  its  powers  made  ame- 
nable to  the  direction  of  the  conscious  mind.  Two 
principal  points  must  here  be  studied.  The  first 
is  the  mechanism  of  that  Avhich  is  called  autistic 
thinking  and  its  relation  to  religious  experience: 
the  second,  the  laws  of  suggestion  and  their  bear- 
ing upon  the  spiritual  life.  Especially  must  we  con- 
sider from  this  point  of  view  the  problems  which 
are  resumed  under  the  headings  of  prayer,  con- 
templation, and  grace.  We  shall  find  ourselves 
compelled  to  examine  the  nature  of  meditation  and 
recollection,  as  spiritual  persons  have  always  prac- 
tised them;  and  to  give,  if  we  can,  a  psychological 
account  of  many  of  their  classic  conceptions  and 

112 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     113 

activities.  We  shall  therefore  be  much  concerned 
with  those  experiences  which  are  often  called  mys- 
tical, but  which  I  prefer  to  call  in  general  contem- 
plative and  intuitive;  because  they  extend,  as  we 
shall  find,  without  a  break  from  the  simplest  type 
of  mental  prayer,  the  most  general  apprehensions 
of  the  Spirit,  to  the  most  fully  developed  examples 
of  religious  mono-ideism.  To  place  all  those  in- 
tuitions and  perceptions  of  which  God  or  His 
Kingdom  are  the  objects  in  a  class  apart  from  all 
other  intuitions  and  perceptions,  and  call  them  "mys- 
tical," is  really  to  beg  the  question:  from  the  start. 
The  psychic  mechanisms  involved  In  them  are  seen 
In  action  In  many  other  types  of  mental  activity; 
and  will  not,  In  my  opinion,  be  understood  until 
they  are  removed  from  the  category  of  the  super- 
natural, and  studied  as  the  movements  of  the  one 
spirit  of  life — here  directed  towards  a  transcen- 
dent objective.  And  further  we  must  ever  keep 
In  mind,  since  we  are  now  dealing  with  specific  spir- 
itual experiences,  deeply  exploring  the  contem- 
plative soul,  that  though  psychology  can  criticize 
these  experiences,  and  help  us  to  separate  the  wheat 
from  the  chaff — can  tell  us,  too,  a  good  deal  about 
the  machinery  by  which  we  lay  hold  of  them,  and 
the  best  way  to  use  it — it  cannot  explain  the  ex- 
periences, pronounce  upon  their  Object,  or  reduce 
that  Object  to  Its  own  terms. 

We  may  some  day  have  a  valid  psychology  of 
religion,  though  we  are  far  from  It  yet:  but  when 


114  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

we  do,  it  will  only  be  true  within  its  own  system  of 
reference.  It  will  deal  with  the  fact  of  the  spirit- 
ual life  from  one  side  only.  And  as  a  discussion  of 
the  senses  and  their  experience  explains  nothing 
about  the  universe  by  which  these  senses  are  im- 
pressed, so  all  discussion  of  spiritual  faculty  and 
experience  remains  within  the  human  radius  and 
neither  invalidates  nor  accounts  for  the  spiritual 
world.  When  the  psychologist  has  finished  telling 
us  all  that  he  knows  about  the  rules  which  govern 
our  mental  life,  and  how  to  run  it  best,  he  is  still 
left  face  to  face  with  the  mystery  of  that  life,  and 
of  that  human  power  of  surrender  to  Spiritual 
Reality  which  is  the  very  essence  of  religion.  Hu- 
mility remains,  therefore,  not  only  the  most  becom- 
ing but  also  the  most  scientific  attitude  for  inves- 
tigators in  this  field.  We  must,  then,  remember  the 
inevitably  symbolic  nature  of  the  language  which  we 
are  compelled  to  use  in  our  attempt  to  describe  these 
experiences;  and  resist  all  temptation  to  confuse  the 
handy  series  of  labels  with  which  psychology  has 
furnished  us,  with  the  psychic  unity  to  which  they 
will  be  attached. 

Perhaps  the  most  fruitful  of  all  our  recent  dis- 
coveries in  the  mental  region  will  turn  out  to  be 
that  which  is  gradually  revealing  to  us  the  extent 
and  character  of  the  unconscious  mind;  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  tapping  its  resources,  bending  its  plastic 
shape  to  our  own  mould.  It  seems  as  though  the 
laws  of  its  being  are  at  last  beginning  to  be  under- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT    115 

stood;  giving  a  new  content  to  the  ancient  command 
"Know  thyself."  We  are  learning  that  psycho- 
therapy, which  made  such  immense  strides  during  the 
war,  Is  merely  one  of  the  directions  in  which  this 
knowledge  may  be  used,  and  this  control  exercised 
by  us.  That  regnancy  of  spirit  over  matter  to- 
wards which  all  Idealists  must  look,  is  by  way  of 
toming  at  least  to  a  partial  fulfilment  in  this  control 
of  the  conscious  over  the  unconscious,  and  thus  over 
the  bodily  life.  Such  control  Is  indeed  an  aspect 
of  our  human  freedom,  of  the  creative  power  which 
has  been  put  Into  our  hands.  In  all  this  religion 
must  be  Interested:  because,  once  more.  It  Is  the 
business  of  religion  to  regenerate  the  whole  man 
and  win  him  for  Reality. 

If  we  could  get  rid  of  the  Idea  that  the  uncon- 
scious Is  a  separate,  and  in  some  sort  hostile  or 
animal  entity  set  over  against  the  conscious  mind; 
and  realize  that  it  Is,  simply,  our  whole  personality, 
with  the  exception  of  the  scrap  that  happens  at 
any  moment  to  be  In  consciousness — then,  perhaps, 
we  should  more  easily  grasp  the  Importance  of  ex- 
ploring and  mobilizing  its  powers.  As  It  Is,  most 
of  us  behave  like  the  owners  of  a  well-furnished 
room,  who  Ignore  every  aspect  of  It  except  the 
window  looking  out  upon  the  street.  This  we  keep 
polished,  and  drape  with  the  best  curtains  that  we 
can  afford.  But  the  room  upon  which  we  sedulously 
turn  X)ur  backs  contains  all  that  we  have  Inherited, 
all  that  we  have  accumulated,  many  tools  which  are 


116  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

rusting  for  want  of  use ;  machinery  too  which,  left 
to  itself,  may  function  satisfactorily,  or  may  get 
out  of  order  and  work  to  results  that  we  neither 
desire  nor  dream.  The  room  is  twilit.  Only  by 
the  window  is  a  little  patch  of  light.  Beyond  this 
there  is  a  fringe  of  vague,  fluctuating,  sometimes 
prismatic  radiance:  an  intermediate  region,  where 
the  images  and  things  which  most  interest  us  have 
their  place,  just  within  range,  or  the  fringe  of  the 
field  of  consciousness.  In  the  darkest  corners  the 
machinery  that  we  do  not  understand,  those  posses- 
sions of  which  we  are  least  proud,  and  those  pictures 
we  hate  to  look  at,  are  hidden  away. 

This  little  parable  represents,  more  or  less,  that 
which  psychology  means  by  the  conscious,  forecon- 
scious,  and  unconscious  regions  of  the  psyche.  It 
must  not  be  pressed,  or  too  literally  interpreted; 
but  it  helps  us  to  remember  the  graded  character 
of  our  consciousness,  its  fluctuating  level,  and  the 
fact  that,  as  well  as  the  outward-looking  mind  which 
alone  we  usually  recognize,  there  is  also  the  psychic 
matrix  from  which  it  has  been  developed,  the  in- 
ward-looking mind,  caring  for  a  variety  of  inter- 
ests of  which  we  hardly,  as  we  say,  think  at  all.  We 
know  as  yet  little  about  this  mysterious  psychic 
whole;  the  inner  nature  of  which  is  only  very  in- 
completely given  to  us  in  the  fluctuating  exeriences 
of  consciousness.  But  we  do  know  that  it,  too,  re- 
ceives at  least  a  measure  of  the  light  and  the  mes- 
sages coming  in  by  the  window  of  our  wits:  that  it 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     117 

is  the  home  of  memory  instinct  and  habit,  the  source 
of  conduct,  and  that  its  control  and  modification 
form  the  major  part  of  the  training  of  character. 
Further,  it  is  sensitive,  plastic,  accessible  to  impres- 
sions, and  unforgetting. 

Consider  now  that  half-lit  region  which  is  called 
the  foreconscious  mind;  for  this  is  of  special  inter- 
est to  the  spiritual  life.  It  is,  in  psychological  lan- 
guage, the  region  of  autistic  as  contrasted  with 
realistic  thought.^  That  is  to  say,  it  is  the  agent 
of  reverie  and  meditation;  it  is  at  work  in  all  our 
brooding  states,  from  day-dream  to  artistic  creation. 
Such  autistic  thought  is  dominated  not  by  logic  or 
will,  but  by  feeling.  It  achieves  its  results  by 
intuition,  and  has  its  reasons  which  the  surface  mind 
knows  not  of.  Here,  in  this  fringe-region — which 
alone  seems  fully  able  to  experience  adoration  and 
wonder,  or  apprehend  the  values  we  call  holiness, 
beauty  or  love — is  the  source  of  that  intuition  of 
the  heart  to  which  the  mystic  owes  the  love  which  is 
knowledge,  and  the  knowledge  which  is  love.  Here 
is  the  true  home  of  inspiration  and  invention. 
Here,  by  a  process  which  is  seldom  fully  conscious 
save  in  its  final  stages,  the  poet's  creations  are  pre- 
pared, and  thence  presented  in  the  form  of  inspira- 
tion to  the  reason;  which — if  he  be  a  great  artist — 
criticizes  them,  before  they  are  given  as  poems  to 
the  world.  Indeed,  in  all  man's  apprehensions  of 
the  transcendental  these  two  states  of  the  psyche 

^  On    all    this,    cf.    J.    Varendonck,    "The    Psychology    of    Day- 
dreams." 


118  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

must  co-operate  if  he  is  to  realize  his  full  powers: 
and  it  is  significant  that  to  this  foreconscious  region 
religion,  in  its  own  special  language,  has  always  in- 
vited him  to  retreat,  if  he  would  know  his  own  soul 
and  thus  commune  with  his  God.  Over  and  over 
again  it  assures  him  under  various  metaphors,  that 
he  must  turn  within,  withdraw  from  the  window, 
meet  the  inner  guest;  and  such  a  withdrawal  is  the 
condition  of  all  contemplation. 

Consider  the  opening  of  Jacob  Boehme's  great 
dialogue  on  the  -Supersensual  Life. 

"The  Scholar  said  to  his  Master:  How  may  I 
come  to  the  supersensual  life,  that  I  may  see  God 
and  hear  Him  speak? 

"His  Master  said:  When  thou  canst  throw  thy- 
self for  a  moment  into  that  where  no  creature 
dwelleth,  then  thou  hearest  what  God  spcaketh. 

"The  Scholar  said:  Is  that  near  at  hand  or  far 
off? 

"The  Master  said:  It  is  in  thee,  if  thou  canst  for 
a  while  cease  from  all  thinking  and  willing,  thou 
shalt  hear  the  unspeakable  words  of  God. 

"The  Scholar  said:  How  can  I  hear  when  I  stand 
still  from  thinking  and  willing? 

"The  Master  said:  When  thou  standest  still  from 
the  thinking  and  willing  of  self,  then  the  eternal 
hearing,  seeing  and  speaking  will  be  revealed  in 
thee."  ' 

In  this  passage  we  have  a  definite  invitation  to 

1  Jacob  Boehrae:  "The  Way  to   Christ,"  Pt.   IV. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT    119 

retreat  from  volitional  to  affective  thought:  from 
the  window  to  the  quiet  place  where  "no  creature 
dwelleth,"  and  In  Patmore's  phrase  "the  night  of 
thought  becomes  the  light  of  perception."  ^  This 
fringe-region  or  foreconscious  Is  in  fact  the  organ 
of  contemplation,  as  the  realistic  outward  looking 
mind  is  the  organ  of  action.  Most  men  go  through 
life  without  conceiving,  far  less  employing,  the  rich 
possibilities  which  are  Implicit  In  it.  Yet  here, 
among  the  many  untapped  resources  of  the  self,  lie 
our  powers  of  response  to  our  spiritual  environment: 
powers  which  are  kept  by  the  tyrannical  interests  of 
everyday  life  below  the  threshold  of  full  conscious- 
ness, and  never  given  a  chance  to  emerge.  Here 
take  place  those  searching  experiences  of  the  "Inner 
life"  which  seem  moonshine  or  morbidity  to  those 
who  have  not  known  them. 

The  many  people  who  complain  that  they  have 
no  such  personal  religious  experience,  that  the  spirit- 
ual world  is  shut  to  them,  are  usually  found  to  have 
expected  this  experience  to  be  given  to  them  without 
any  deliberate  and  sustained  effort  on  their  own  part. 
They  have  lived  from  childhood  to  maturity  at  the 
little  window  of  consciousness  and  have  never  given 
themselves  the  opportunity  of  setting  up  correspond- 
ences with  any  other  world  than  that  of  sense.  Yet 
all  normal  men  and  women  possess,  at  least  in  a 
rudimentary  form,  some  intuition  of  the  transcen- 
dental ;  shown  In  their  power  of  experiencing  beauty 

iPatmore:  "The  Rod,  the  Root  and  the  Flower:  Aurea  Dicta," 
«3. 


120  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

or  love.  In  some  it  is  dominant,  emerging  easily 
and  without  help;  in  others  it  is  latent  and  must  be 
developed  in  the  right  way.  In  others  again  it  may 
exist  in  virtual  conflict  with  a  strongly  realistic  out- 
look; gathering  way  until  it  claims  its  rights  at  last 
in  a  psychic  storm.  Its  emergence,  however 
achieved,  is  a  part — and  for  our  true  life,  by  far  the 
most  important  part — of  that  outcropping  and  over- 
flowing into  consciousness  of  the  marginal  faculties 
which  is  now  being  recognized  as  essential  to  all 
artistic  and  creative  activities;  and  as  playing,  too,  a 
large  part  in  the  regulation  of  mental  and  bodily 
health. 

All  the  great  religions  have  implicitly  understood 
— though  without  analysis — the  vast  importance  of 
these  spiritual  intuitions  and  faculties  lying  below 
the  surface  of  the  everyday  mind;  and  have  per- 
fected machinery  tending  to  secure  their  release  and 
their  training.  This  is  of  two  kinds:  first,  religious 
ceremonial,  addressing  itself  to  corporate  feeling; 
next  the  discipline  of  meditation  and  prayer,  which 
educates  the  individual  to  the  same  ends,  gradually 
developing  the  powers  of  the  foreconscious  region, 
steadying  them,  and  bringing  them  under  the  control 
of  the  purified  will.  Without  some  such  education, 
widely  as  its  details  may  vary,  there  can  be  no  real 
living  of  the  spiritual  life. 

"A  going  out  into  the  life  of  sense 
Preventeth  tiie  exercise  of  earnest  realization."  ^ 

^Ruysbroeck:  "The  Book  of  the  XII   Beguines,"   Cap.   6. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     121 

Psychologists  sometimes  divide  men  into  the  two 
extreme  classes  of  extroverts  and  introverts.  The 
extrovert  is  the  typical  active;  always  leaning  out  of 
the  window  and  setting  up  contacts  with  the  outside 
world.  His  thinking  is  mainly  realistic.  That  is 
to  say,  it  deals  with  the  data  of  sense.  The  intro- 
vert is  the  typical  contemplative,  predominantly 
interested  in  the  inner  world.  His  thinking  is 
mainly  autistic,  dealing  with  the  results  of  intuition 
and  feehng,  working  these  up  into  new  structures 
and  extorting  from  them  new  experiences.  He  is 
at  home  in  the  foreconscious,  has  its  peculiar  powers 
under  control;  and  instinctively  obedient  to  the  mys- 
tic command  to  sink  into  the  ground  of  the  soul, 
he  leans  towards  those  deep  wells  of  his  own  being 
which  plunge  into  the  unconscious  foundations  of  life. 
By  this  avoidance  of  total  concentration  on  the  sense 
world — though  material  obtained  from  it  must  as  a 
matter  of  fact  enter  into  all,  even  his  most  "spirit- 
ual" creations — he  seems  able  to  attend  to  the 
messages  which  intuition  picks  up  from  other  levels 
of  being.  It  is  significant  that  nearly  all  spiritual 
writers  use  this  very  term  of  introversion,  which 
psychology  has  now  adopted  as  the  most  accurate 
that  it  can  find,  in  a  favourable,  indeed  laudatory, 
sense.  By  it  they  intend  to  describe  the  healthy 
expansion  of  the  inner  life,  the  development  of  the 
soul's  power  of  attention  to  the  spiritual,  which  is 
characteristic  of  those  real  men  and  women  of 
prayer  whom  Ruysbroeck  describes  as : — 


122  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

"Gazing  inward  with  an  eye  uplifted  and  open  to  the  Eter- 
nal Truth 

Inwardly  abiding  in  simplicity  and  stillness  and  in  utter 
peace."  ^ 

It  is  certain  that  no  one  who  wholly  lacks  this 
power  of  retreat  from  the  surface,  and  has  failed 
thus  to  mobilize  his  foreconscious  energies,  can  live 
a  spiritual  life.  This  is  why  silence  and  meditation 
play  so  large  a  part  in  all  sane  religious  discipline. 
But  the  ideal  state,  a  state  answering  to  that  rhythm 
of  work  and  prayer  which  should  be  the  norm  of 
a  mature  spirituality,  is  one  in  which  we  have 
achieved  that  mental  flexibility  and  control  which 
puts  us  in  full  possession  of  our  autistic  and  our 
realistic  powers;  balancing  and  unifying  the  inner 
and  the  outer  world. 

This  being  so,  it  is  worth  while  to  consider  in 
more  detail  the  character  of  foreconscious  thought. 

Foreconscious  thinking,  as  it  commonly  occurs  in 
us,  with  its  unchecked  illogical  stream  of  images  and 
ideas,  moving  towards  no  assigned  end,  combined 
in  no  ordered  chain,  is  merely  what  we  usually  call 
day-dream.  But  where  a  definite  wish  or  purpose,  an 
end,  dominates  this  reverie  and  links  up  its  images 
and  ideas  into  a  cycle,  we  get  in  combination  all  the 
valuable  properties  both  of  affective  and  of  directed 
thinking;  although  the  reverie  or  contemplation 
takes  place  in  the  fringe-region  of  our  mental  life, 
and  in  apparent  freedom  from  the  control  of  the  con- 

i"The  Book  of  the  XII  Beguines,"  Cap.   7. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     123 

scious  reason.  The  object  of  recollection  and  med- 
itation, which  are  the  first  stages  of  mental  prayer, 
is  to  set  going  such  a  series  and  to  direct  it  towards 
an  assigned  end:  and  this  first  inward-turning  act 
and  self-orientation  are  voluntary,  though  the  activ- 
ities which  they  set  up  are  not.  "You  must  know, 
my  daughters,"  says  St.  Teresa,  "that  this  is  no 
supernatural  act  but  depends  on  our  will;  and  that 
therefore  we  can  do  it,  with  that  ordinary  assistance 
of  God  which  we  need  for  all  our  acts  and  even  for 
our  good  thoughts."  ^ 

Consider  for  a  moment  what  happens  in  prayer. 
I  pass  over  the  simple  recitation  of  verbal  prayers, 
which  will  better  be  dealt  with  when  we  come  to 
consider  the  institutional  framework  of  the  spiritual 
life.  We  are  now  concerned  with  mental  prayer 
or  orison;  the  simplest  of  those  degrees  of  contem- 
plation which  may  pass  gradually  into  mystical  expe- 
rience, and  are  at  least  in  some  form  a  necessity  of 
any  real  and  actualized  spiritual  life.  Such  prayer 
is  well  defined  by  the  mystics,  as  "a  devout  intent 
directed  to  God."  ^  What  happens  in  it?  All 
writers  on  the  science  of  prayer  observe,  that  the 
first  necessity  is  Recollection;  which,  in  a  rough  and 
ready  way,  we  may  render  as  concentration,  or  per- 
haps in  the  special  language  of  psychology  as  "con- 
tention." The  mind  is  called  in  from  external 
interests  and  distractions,  one  by  one  the  avenues 

1  "The  Way  of  Perfection,"  Cap.  29. 
^  "The  Cloud  of  Unknowing,"  Cap.  39. 


124  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

of  sense  are  dosed,  till  the  hum  of  the  world  is 
hardly  perceived  by  it.  I  need  not  labour  this 
description,  for  it  is  a  state  of  which  we  must  all 
have  experience:  but  those  who  wish  to  see  It  de- 
scribed with  the  precision  of  genius,  need  only  turn 
to  St.  Teresa's  "Way  of  Perfection."  Having 
achieved  this,  we  pass  gradually  into  the  condition 
of  deep  withdrawal  variously  called  Simplicity  or 
Quiet;  a  state  in  which  the  attention  is  quietly  and 
without  effort  directed  to  God,  and  the  whole  self 
as  it  were  held  in  His  presence.  This  presence  is 
given,  dimly  or  clearly,  in  intuition.  The  actual 
prayer  used  will  probably  consist — again  to  use 
technical  language — of  "affective  acts  and  aspira- 
tions"; short  phrases  repeated  and  held,  perhaps 
expressing  penitence,  humility,  adoration  or  love,  and 
for  the  praying  self  charged  with  profound  signif- 
icance. 

"If  we  would  intentively  pray  for  getting  of 
good,"  says  "The  Cloud  of  Unknowing,"  "let  us  cry 
either  with  word  or  with  thought  or  with  desire, 
nought  else  nor  on  more  words  but  this  word 
God.  .  .  .  Study  thou  not  for  no  words,  for  so 
shouldst  thou  never  come  to  thy  purpose  nor  to  this 
work,  for  it  is  never  got  by  study,  but  all  only  by 
grace."  ^ 

Now  the  question  naturally  arises,  how  does  this 
recollected  state,  this  alogical  brooding  on  a  spirit- 
ual  theme,    exceed   in   religious   value    the   orderly 

1  Ibid. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     125 

saying  of  one's  prayers?  And  the  answer  psychol- 
ogy suggests  is,  that  more  of  us,  not  less,  is  engaged 
in  such  a  spiritual  act:  that  not  only  the  conscious 
attention,  but  the  foreconscious  region  too  is  then 
thrown  open  to  the  highest  sources  of  life.  We  are 
at  last  learning  to  recognize  the  existence  of  delicate 
mental  processes  which  entirely  escape  the  crude 
methods  of  speech.  Reverie  as  a  genuine  thought 
process  is  beginning  to  be  studied  with  the  attention 
it  deserves,  and  new  understanding  of  prayer  must 
result.  By  its  means  powers  of  perception  and 
response  ordinarily  latent  are  roused  to  action;  and 
thus  the  whole  life  is  enriched.  That  faculty  in  us 
which  corresponds,  not  with  the  busy  life  of  suc- 
cession but  with  the  eternal  sources  of  power,  gets 
its  chance.  "Though  the  soul,"  says  Von  Hiigel, 
"cannot  abidingly  abstract  itself  from  its  fellows, 
it  can  and  ought  frequently  to  recollect  itself  in  a 
simple  sense  of  God's  presence.  Such  moments  of 
direct  preoccupation  with  God  alone  bring  a  deep 
refreshment  and  simplification  to  the  soul."  ^ 

True  silence,  says  William  Penn,  of  this  quiet 
surrender  to  reality,  "is  rest  to  the  mind,  and  is  to 
the  spirit  what  sleep  is  to  the  body;  nourishment  and 
refreshment."  ^  Psychology  endorses  the  constant 
statements  of  all  religions  of  the  Spirit,  that  no  one 
need  hope  to  live  a  spiritual  life  who  cannot  find  a 
little  time  each  day  for  this  retreat  from  the  window, 

1  "Eternal  Life,"  p.  396. 

2  Penn:  "No  Cross,  No  Crown." 


126  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

this  quiet  and  loving  waiting  upon  the  unseen 
"with  the  forces  of  the  soul,"  as  Ruysbroeck  puts  it, 
"gathered  into  unity  of  the  Spirit."  ^  Under  these 
conditions,  and  these  only,  the  intuitive,  creative, 
artistic  powers  are  captured  and  dedicated  to  the 
highest  ends:  and  in  these  powers  rather  than  the 
rational  our  best  chance  of  apprehending  eternal 
values  abides.  "Taste  and  see  that  the  Lord  is 
sweet."  "Be  still!  be  still!  and  know  that  I  am 
God!" 

Since,  then,  the  foreconscious  mind  and  its  activ- 
ities are  of  such  paramount  interest  to  the  spiritual 
life,  we  may  before  we  go  on  glance  at  one  or  two 
of  its  characteristics.  And  first  we  notice  that  the 
fact  that  the  foreconscious  is,  so  to  speak,  in  charge 
in  the  mental  and  contemplative  type  of  prayer 
explains  why  it  is  that  even  the  most  devout  persons 
are  so  constantly  tormented  by  distractions  whilst 
engaged  in  it.  Very  often,  they  are  utterly  unable 
to  keep  their  attention  fixed;  and  the  reason  of  this 
is,  that  conscious  attention  and  thought  are  not  the 
faculties  primarily  involved.  What  is  involved, 
is  reverie  coloured  by  feeling;  and  this  tends  to 
depart  from  its  assigned  end  and  drift  into  mere 
day-dream,  if  the  emotional  tension  slackens  or 
some  intruding  image  starts  a  new  train  of  associa- 
tions. The  religious  mind  is  distressed  by  this  con- 
stant failure  to  look  steadily  at  that  which  alone  it 
wants  to  see;  but  the  failure  abides  in  the  fact  thav 

1  "The  Boole  of  the  XII  Beguines,"  Cap.  7. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     127 

the  machinery  used  is  affective,  and  obedient  to  the 
rise  and  fall  of  feeling  rather  than  the  control  of  the 
will.  "By  love  shall  He  be  gotten  aiT.d  holden,  by 
thought  never." 

Next,  consider  for  a  moment  the  way  in  which 
the  foreconscious  does  and  must  present  its  appre- 
hensions to  consciousness.  Its  cognitions  of  the 
spiritual  are  in  the  nature  of  pure  immediacy,  of 
uncriticized  contacts:  and  the  best  and  greatest  of 
them  seem  to  elude  altogether  that  machinery  of 
speech  and  image  which  has  been  developed  throu"gh 
the  life  of  sense.  The  well-known  language  of 
spiritual  writers  about  the  divine  darkness  or  igno- 
rance is  an  acknowledgment  of  this.  God  is  "known 
darkly."  Our  experience  of  Eternity  is  "that  of 
which  nothing  can  be  said."  It  is  "beyond  feeling" 
and  "beyond  knowledge,"  a  certitude  known  in  the 
ground  of  the  soul,  and  so  forth.  It  is  indeed  true 
that  the  spiritual  world  is  for  the  human  mind  a 
transcendent  world,  does  differ  utterly  in  kind  from 
the  best  that  the  world  of  succession  is  able  to  give 
us;  as  we  know  once  for  all  when  we  establish  a  con- 
tact with  it,  however  fleeting.  But  constantly  the 
foreconscious — which,  as  we  shall  do  well  to  remem- 
ber, is  the  artistic  region  of  the  mind,  the  home  of 
the  poem,  and  the  creative  phantasy — works  up  its 
transcendent  intuitions  in  symbolic  form.  For  this 
purpose  it  sometimes  uses  the  machinery  of  speech, 
sometimes  that  of  image.  As  our  ordinary  reveries 
constantly  proceed  by  way  of  an  interior  conversa- 


128  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

tion  or  narrative,  so  the  content  of  spiritual  con- 
templation is  often  expressed  in  dialogue,  in  which 
memory  and  belief  are  fused  with  the  fruit  of  percep- 
tion. The  "Dialogue  of  St.  Catherine  of  Siena," 
the  "Life  of  Suso,"  and  the  "Imitation  of  Christ," 
all  provide  beautiful  examples  of  this;  but  indeed 
illustrations  of  it  might  be  found  in  every  school  and 
period  of  religious  literature. 

Such  inward  dialogue,  one  of  the  commonest  spon- 
taneous forms  of  autistic  thought,  is  perpetually 
resorted  to  by  devout  minds  to  actualize  their  con- 
sciousness of  direct  communion  with  God.  I  need 
not  point  out  how  easily  and  naturally  it  expresses 
for  them  that  sense  of  a  Friend  and  Companion, 
an  indwelling  power  and  support,  which  is  perhaps 
their  characteristic  experience.  "Blessed  is,  that 
soul,"  says  a  Kempis,  "that  heareth  the  Lord  speak- 
ing in  him  and  taketh  from  His  mouth  the  word  of 
consolation.  Blessed  be  those  ears  that  receive  of 
God's  whisper  and  take  no  heed  of  the  whisper  of 
this  world."  ^  Though  St.  John  of  the  Cross  has 
reminded  us  with  blunt  candour  that  such  persons 
are  for  the  most  part  only  talking  to  themselves,  we 
need  not  deny  tlic  value  of  such  a  talking  as  a  means 
of  expressing  the  dcpoly  known  and  intimnte  pres- 
ence of  Spirit.  Moreover,  the  thoughts  and  words  in 
which  the  contemplative  expresses  his  sense  of  love 
and  dedication  reverberate  as  it  were  in  the  depths 
of  the  instinctive  mind,  now  in  this  quietude  thrown 

3  De  Imit.  Christi,  Bk.  Ill,  Cap.  i. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT    129 

open  to  these  influences :  and  the  instinctive  mind,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  is  the  home  of  character  and 
of  habit  formation. 

Where  there  is  a  tendency  to  think  in  images 
rather  than  in  words,  the  experiences  of  the  Spirit 
may  be  actualized  in  the  form  of  vision  rather  than 
of  dialogue:  and  here  again,  memory  and  feeling 
will  provide  the  material.  Here  we  stand  at  the 
sources  of  religious  art:  which,  when  it  is  genuine, 
is  a  symbolic  picture  of  the  experiences  of  faith,  and 
in  those  minds  attuned  to  it  may  evoke  again  the 
memory  or  very  presence  of  those  experiences.  But 
many  minds  are,  as  it  were,  their  own  religious 
artists;  and  build  up  for  themselves  psychic  struc- 
tures answering  to  their  intuitive  apprehensions.  So 
vivid  may  these  structures  sometimes  be  for  them 
that — to  revert  again  to  our  original  simile — the 
self  turns  from  the  window  and  the  realistic  world 
without,  and  becomes  for  the  time  wholly  concen- 
trated on  the  symbolic  drama  or  picture  within  the 
room;  which  abolishes  all  awareness  of  the  every- 
day world.  When  this  happens  in  a  small  way,  we 
have  what  might  be  called  a  religious  day-dream  of 
more  or  less  beauty  and  intensity;  such  as  most  de- 
vout people  who  tend  to  visualization  have  probably 
known.  When  the  break  with  the  ex;ternal  world 
is  complete,  we  get  those  ecstatic  visions  in  which 
mystics  of  a  certain  type  actualize  their  spiritual 
intuitions.  The  Bible  is  full  of  examples  of  this. 
Good  historic  Instances  are  the  visions  of  Mechthild 


130  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

of  Magdeburg  or  Angela  of  FoIIgno.  The  first 
contain  all  the  elements  of  drama,  the  last  cover  a 
wide  symbolic  and  emotional  field.  Those  who 
have  read  Canon  Streeter's  account  of  the  visions 
of  the  Sadhu  Sundar  Singh  will  recognize  them  as 
being  of  this  type.^ 

I  do  not  wish  to  go  further  than  this  into  the 
abnormal  and  extreme  types  of  religious  autism; 
trance,  ecstasy  and  so  forth.  Our  concern  is  with 
the  norm  of  the  spiritual  life,  as  it  exists  to-day  and 
as  all  may  live  it.  But  it  is  necessary  to  realize  that 
image  and  vision  do  within  limits  represent  a  per- 
fectly genuine  way  of  doing  things,  which  is  in* 
evitable  for  deeply  spiritual  selves  of  a  certain  type; 
and  that  it  is  neither  good  psychology  nor  good 
Christianity,  lightly  to  dismiss  as  superstition  or  hys- 
teria the  pictured  world  of  symbol  in  which  our 
neighbour  may  live  and  save  his  soul.  The  symbolic 
world  of  traditional  piety,  with  its  angels  and  de- 
mons, its  friendly  saints,  its  spatial  heaven,  may  con- 
serve and  communicate  spiritual  values  far  better 
than  the  more  sophisticated  universe  of  religious 
philosophy.  We  may  be  sure  that  both  are  more 
characteristic  of  the  image-making  and  structure- 
building  tendencies  of  the  mind,  than  they  are  of 
the  ultimate  and  for'  us  unknowable  reality  of  things. 
Their  value — or  the  value  of  any  work  of  art  which 
the  foreconscious  has  contrived — abides  wholly  in 

^  Streeter  and   Appasamy:  "The  Sadhu,   a   Study  in  Mysticism 
and  Practical  Religion,"  Pt.  V. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     131 

the  content:  the  quality  of  the  material  thus  worked 
up.  The  rich  nature,  the  purified  love,  capable  of 
the  highest  correspondences,  will  express  even  in 
the  most  primitive  duologue  or  vision  the  results 
of  a  veritable  touching  and  tasting"  of  Eternal  Life. 
Its  psychic  structures — however  logic  may  seek  to 
discredit  them — will  convey  spiritual  fact,  have  the 
quality  which  the  mystics  mean  when  they  speak  of 
illumination.  The  emotional  pietist  will  merely 
ramble  among  the  religious  symbols  and  phrases 
with  which  the  devout  memory  is  stored.  It  is  true 
that  the  voice  or  the  picture,  surging  up  as  it  does 
into  the  field  of  consciousness,  seems  to  both  classes 
to  have  the  character  of  a  revelation.  The  pictures 
unroll  themselves  automatically  and  with  amazing 
authority  and  clearness,  the  conversation  is  with 
Another  than  ourselves;  or  in  more  generalized  ex- 
periences, such  as  the  sense  of  the  Divine  Presence, 
the  contact  is  with  another  order  of  life.  But  the 
crucial  question  which  religion  asks  must  be,  does 
fresh  life  flow  in  from  those  visions  and  contacts, 
that  intercourse?  Is  transcendental  feeling  involved 
in  them?  "What  fruits  dost  thou  bring  back  from 
this  thy  vision?"  says  Jacopone  da  Todi;^  and  this 
remains  the  only  real  test  by  which  to  separate  day- 
dreams from  the  vitalizing  act  of  contemplation. 
In  the  first  we  are  abandoned  to  a  delightful,  and 
perhaps  as  it  seems  holy  or  edifying  vagrancy  of 

1  Que  frutti  reducene  de  esta  tua  visione? 
Vita  ordinata  en  onne  nazione. 

— Jacopone  da  Todi:  Lauda  79. 


132  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

thought.  In  the  second,  by  a  deliberate  choice  and 
act  of  will,  foreconscious  thinking  is  set  going  and 
directed' towards  an  assigned  end:  the  apprehending 
and  actualizing  of  our  deepest  intuition  of  God.  In 
it,  a  great  region  of  the  mind  usually  ignored  by 
us  and  left  to  chance,  yet  source  of  many  choices 
and  deeds,  and  capable  of  much  purifying  pain,  is 
put  to  its  true  work:  and  it  is  work  which  must  be 
humbly,  regularly  and  faithfully  performed.  It  is 
to  this  region  tiiat  poetry,  art  and  music — and  even, 
if  I  dare  say  so,  philosophy — make  their  fundamen- 
tal appeal.  No  life  is  whole  and  harmonized  in 
which  it  has  not  taken  its  right  place. 

We  must  now  go  on — and  indeed,  any  psychologi- 
cal study  of  prayerful  experience  must  lead  us  on 
— to  the  subject  of  suggestion,  and  its  relation  to 
the  inner  life.  By  suggestion  of  course  is  here 
meant,  in  conformity  with  current  psychological 
doctrine,  the  process  by  which  an  Idea  enters  the 
deeper  and  unconscious  psychic  levels  and  there  be- 
comes fruitful.  Its  real  nature,  and  in  consequence 
something  of  its  far-reaching  importance,  is  now  be- 
ginning to  be  understood  by  us:  a  fact  of  great  mo- 
ment for  both  the  study  and  the  practice  of  the 
spiritual  life.  Since  the  transforming  work  of  the 
Spirit  must  be  done  through  man's  ordinary  psychic 
machinery  and  in  conformity  with  the  laws  which 
govern  it,  every  such  increase  in  our  knowledge  of 
that  machinery  must  serve  the  interests  of  religion, 
and  show  its  teachers  the  way  to  success. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT    133 

Suggestion  is  usually  said  to  be  of  two  kinds. 
The  first  is  hetero-suggestion,  in  which  the  self- 
realizing  idea  is  received  either  wittingly  or  un- 
wittingly from  the  outer  world.  During  the  whole 
of  our  conscious  lives  for  good  or  evil  we  are  at 
the  mercy  of  such  hetero-suggestions,  which  are  be- 
ing made  to  us  at  every  moment  by  our  environ- 
ment; and  they  form,  as  we  shall  afterwards  see, 
a  dominant  factor  in  corporate  religious  exercises. 
The  second  t}^e  is  auto-suggestion.  In  this,  by 
means  of  the  conscious  mind,  an  idea  is  implanted 
in  the  unconscious  and  there  left  to  mature.  Thus 
do  willingly  accepted  beliefs,  religious,  social,  or 
scientific,  gradually  and  silently  permeate  the  whole 
being  and  show  their  results  in  character. 

A  little  reflection  shows,  however,  that  these  two 
forms  of  suggestion  shade  into  one  another;  and 
that  no  hetero-suggestion,  however  impressively 
given,  becomes  active  in  us  until  we  have  in  some 
sort  accepted  it  and  transformed  it  into  an  auto- 
suggestion. Theology  expresses  this  fact  in  its 
own  special  language,  when  it  says  that  the  will 
must  co-operate  with  grace  if  it  is  to  be  efllicacious. 
Thus  the  primacy  of  the  will  is  safe-guarded.  It 
stands,  or  should  stand,  at  the  door;  selecting  from 
among  the  countless  dynamic  suggestions,  good  and 
bad,  which  life  pours  in  on  us,  those  which  serve  the 
best  interests  of  the  self. 

As  a  rule,  men  take  little  trouble  to  sort  out  the 
incoming  suggestions.     They  allow  uncriticized  be- 


134  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

liefs  and  prejudices,  the  ideas  of  hatred,  anxiety  or 
ill-health,  free  entrance.  They  fail  to  seize  and 
affirm  the  ideas  of  power,  renovation,  joy.  They 
would  be  more  careful,  did  they  grasp  more  fully 
the  immense  and  often  enduring  effect  of  these  ac- 
cepted suggestions;  the  extent  in  which  the  fun- 
damental, unreasoning  psychic  deeps  are  plastic  to 
ideas.  Yet  this  plasticity  is  exhibited  in  daily  life 
first  under  the  emotional  form  of  sympathy,  re- 
sponse to  the  suggestion  of  other  peoples'  feeling- 
states;  and  next  under  the  conative  form  of  imita- 
tion, active  acceptance  of  the  suggestion  made  by 
their  appearance,  habits,  deeds.  All  political 
creeds,  panics,  fashion  and  good  form  witness  to 
the  overwhelming  power  of  suggestion.  We  are 
so  accustomed  to  this  psychic  contagion  that  we  fail 
to  realize  the  strangeness  of  the  process:  but  it 
is  now  known  to  reach  a  degree  previously  un- 
suspected, and  of  which  we  have  not  yet  found 
the  limits. 

In  the  religious  sphere,  the  more  sensational 
demonstrations  of  this  psychic  suggestibility  have 
long  been  notorious.  Obvious  instances  are  those 
ecstatics — some  of  them  true  saints,  some  only  re- 
ligious invalids — whose  continuous  and  ardent  med- 
itation on  the  Cross  produced  in  them  the  actual 
bodily  marks  of  the  Passion  of  Christ.  In  less  ex- 
treme types,  perpetual  dwelling  on  this  subject,  to- 
gether with  that  eager  emotional  desire  to  be  united 
with  the  sufferings  of  the  Redeemer  which  mediaeval 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT    135 

religion  encouraged,  frequently  modlfiecJ  the  whole 
life  of  the  contemplative;  shaping  the  plastic  mind, 
and  often  the  body  too,  to  its  own  mould.  A  good 
historic  example  of  this  law  of  religious  suggesti- 
bility is  the  case  of  Julian  of  Norwich.  As  a 
young  girl,  Julian  prayed  that  she  might  have  an 
illness  at  thirty  years  of  age,  and  also  a  closer 
knowledge  of  Christ's  pains.  She  forgot  the 
prayer:  but  it  worked  below  the  threshold  as  for- 
gotten suggestions  often  do,  and  when  she  was  thirty 
the  illness  came.  Its  psychic  origin  can  still  be  rec- 
ognized in  her  own  candid  account  of  it;  and  with 
the  illness  the  other  half  of  that  dynamic  prayer  re- 
ceived fulfilment,  in  those  well-known  visions  of  the 
Passion  to  which  we  owe  the  "Revelations  of 
Divine  Love."  ^ 

This  is  simply  a  striking  instance  of  a  process 
which  is  always  taking  place  in  every  one  of  us,  for 
good  or  evil.  The  deeper  mind  opens  to  all  who 
knock;  provided  only  that  the  new-comers  be  not 
the  enemies  of  some  stronger  habit  or  impression 
already  within.  To  suggestions  which  coincide 
with  the  self's  desires  or  established  beliefs  it  gives 
an  easy  welcome;  and  these,  once  within,  always 
tend  to  self-realization.  Thus  the  French  Carmel- 
ite Therese  de  I'Enfant-Jesus,  once  convinced  that 
she  was  destined  to  be  a  "victim  of  love,"  began 
that  career  of  suffering  which  ended  In  her  death 

1  Julian  of  Norwich:  "Revelations  of  Divine  Love,"  Caps.  2,  3, 
4- 


136  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

at  the  age  of  twenty-four.  ^  The  lives  of  the 
Saints  are  full  of  incidents  explicable  on  the  same 
lines:  exhibiting  again  and  again  the  dramatic  reali- 
zation of  traditional  ideas  or  passionate  desires. 
We  see  therefore  that  St.  Paul's  admonition 
'^Whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things 
are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  be  of  good  report, 
think  on  these  things"  is  a  piece  of  practical  ad- 
vice of  which  the  importance  can  hardly  be  exag- 
gerated; for  it  deals  with  the  conditions  under  which 
man  makes  his  own  mentality. 

Suggestion,  in  fact,  is  one  of  the  most  powerful 
agents  either  of  self-destruction  or  of  self-advance- 
ment which  are  within  our  grasp:  and  those  who 
speak  of  the  results  of  psycho-therapy,  or  the  cer- 
titudes of  religious  experience,  as  "mere  suggestion" 
are  unfortunate  in  their  choice  of  an  adjective.  If 
then  we  wish  to  explore  all  those  mental  resources 
which  can  be  turned  to  the  purposes  of  the  spiritual 
life,  this  is  one  which  we  must  not  neglect.  The 
religious  idea,  rightly  received  into  the  mind  and 
reinforced  by  the  suggestion  of  regular  devotional 
exercises,  always  tends  to  realize  itself.  "Receive 
His  leaven,"  says  William  Penn,  "and  it  will  change 
thee,  His  medicine  and  it  will  cure  thee.  He  is  as 
infallible  as  free;  without  money  and  with  certainty. 
Yield  up  the  body,  soul  and  spirit  to  Him  that 
maketh  all  things  new :  new  heaven  and  new  earth, 
new  love,  new  joy,  new  peace,  new  works,  a  new 

1  "Soeur  Therese  de  I'Enfant-Jesus,"  Cap.  8. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     137 

life  and  conversation."  ^  This  is  fine  literature, 
but  it  is  more  important  to  us  to  realize  that  it  is 
also  good  psychology:  and  that  here  we  are  given 
the  key  to  those  amazing  regenerations  of  character 
which  are  the  romance  and  glory  of  the  religious 
life.  Pascal's  too  celebrated  saying,  that  if  you 
will  take  holy  water  regularly  you  will  presently  be- 
lieve, witnesses  on  another  level  to  the  same  truth. 
Fears  have  been  expressed  that,  by  such  an  appli- 
cation of  the  laws  of  suggestion  to  religious  experi- 
ence, we  shall  reduce  religion  itself  to  a  mere  favour- 
able subjectivism,  and  identify  faith  with  suggesti- 
bility. But  here  the  bearing  of  this  series  of  facts 
on  bodily  health  provides  us  with  a  useful  analogy.  \^ 
Bodily  health  is  no  illusion.  It  does  not  consist  in 
merely  thinking  that  we  are  well,  but  is  a  real  condi- 
tion of  well-being  and  of  power;  depending  on  the 
state  of  our  tissues  and  correct  balance  and  wor'king 
of  our  physical  and  psychical  life.  And  this  correct 
and  wholesome  working  will  be  furthered  and 
steadied — or  if  broken  may  often  be  restored — by 
good  suggestions,  it  may  be  disturbed  by  bad  sug- 
gestions; because  the  controlling  factor  of  life  is 
mind,  not  chemistry,  and  mind  is  plastic  to  Ideas.  So 
too  the  life  of  the  Spirit  is  a  concrete  fact;  a  real 
response  to  a  real  universe.  But  this  concrete  life 
of  faith,  with  its  growth  and  its  experiences.  Its 
richly  various  working  of  one  principle  in  every  as- 
pect of  existence,  its  correspondences  with  the  Eter- 

*  William  Penn:  "No  Cross,  No   Crown." 


138  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

nal  World,  its  definitely  ontological  references,  is 
lived  here  and  now;  in  and  through  the  self's  psychic 
life,  and  indeed  his  bodily  lifd  too — a  truth  which 
is  embodied  in  sacramentalism.  Therefore,  shar- 
ing as  it  does  life's  plastic  character,  it  too  is  ame- 
nable to  suggestion  and  can  be  helped  or  hindered  by 
it.  It  is  indeed  characteristic  of  those  in  whom 
this  life  is  dominant,  that  they  are  capable  of  re- 
ceiving and  responding  to  the  highest  and  most 
vivifying  suggestions  which  the  universe  in  its  total- 
ity pours  in  on  us.  This  movement  of  response, 
often  quietly  overlooked,  is  that  which  makes  them 
not  spiritual  hedonists  but  men  and  women  of 
prayer.  Grace — to  give  these  suggestions  of  Spifit 
their  conventional  name — is  perpetually  beating  in 
on  us.  But  if  it  is  to  be  inwardly  realized,  the 
Divine  suggestion  must  be  transformed  by  man's  will 
and  love  into  an  auto-suggestion;  and  this  is  what 
seems  to  happen  in  meditation  and  prayer. 

Everything  indeed  points  to  a  very  close  connec- 
tion between  what  might  be  called  the  mechanism 
of  prayer  and  of  suggestion.  To  say  this,  is  in  no 
way  to  minimize  the  transcendental  character  of 
prayer.  In  both  states  there  is  a  spontaneous  or 
deliberate  throwing  open  of  the  deeper  mind  to  in- 
fluences which,  fully  accepted,  tend  to  realize  them- 
selves. Look  at  the  directions  given  by  all  great 
teachers  of  prayer  and  contemplation;  and  these 
two  acts,  rightly  performed,  fuse  one  with  the 
other,  they  are  two  aspects  of  the  single  act  of  com- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT    139 

munion  with  God.  Look  at  their  insistence  on  a 
stilling  and  recollecting  of  the  mind,  on  surrender, 
a  held  passivity  not  merely  limp  but  purposeful:  on 
the  need  of  meek  yielding  to  a  greater  inflowing 
power,  and  its  regenerating  suggestions.  Then 
compare  this  with  the  method  by  which  health-giv- 
ing suggestions  are  made  to  the  bodily  life.  "In 
the  deeps'  of  the  soul  His  word  is  spoken."  Is  not 
this  an  exact  description  of  the  inward  work  of  the 
self-realizing  idea  of  holiness,  received  in  the  prayer 
of  quiet  into  the  unconscious  mind,  and  there  ex- 
perienced as  a  transforming  power?  I  think  that 
we  may  go  even  further  than  this,  and  say  that  grace, 
is,  in  effect,  the  direct  suggestion  of  the  spiritual 
affecting  our  soul's  life.  As  we  are  commonly  docile 
to  the  countless  hetero-suggestions,  some  of  them 
helpful,  some  weakening,  some  actually  perverting, 
which  our  environment  is  always  making  to  us;  so 
we  can  and  should  be  so  spiritually  suggestible  that 
we  can  receive  those  given  to  us  by  all-penetra- 
ting Divine  life.  What  is  generally  called  sin,  es- 
pecially in  the  forms  of  self-sufiiciency,  lack  of  char- 
ity and  the  indulgence  of  the  senses,  renders  us  re- 
calcitrant to  these  living  suggestions  of  the  Spirit. 
The  opposing  qualities,  humility,  love  and  purity, 
make  us  as  we  say  accessible  to  grace. 

"Son,"  says  the  inward  voice  to  Thomas  a  Kem- 
pis,  "My  grace  is  precious,  and  suffereth  not  itself 
to  be  mingled  with  strange  things  nor  earthly  conso- 
lations.    Wherefore  it  behoveth  thee  to  cast  away 


140  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

impediments  to  grace,  if  thou  wiliest  to  receive  the 
inpouring  thereof.  Ask  for  thyself  a  secret  place, 
love  to  dwell  alone  with  thyself,  seek  confabulation 
of  none  other  .  .  .  put  the  readiness  for  God  be- 
fore all  other  things,  for  thou  canst  not  both  take 
heed  to  Me  and  delight  in  things  transitory.  .  .  . 
This  grace  is  a  light  supernatural  and  a  special  gift 
of  God,  and  a  proper  sign  of  the  chosen  children  of 
God,  and  the  earnest  of  everlasting  health;  for  God 
lifteth  up  man  from  earthly  things  to  love  heavenly 
things,  and  of  him  that  is  fleshly  maketh  a  spiritual 
man."  ^  Could  we  have  a  more  vivid  picture  than 
this  of  the  conditions  of  withdrawal  and  attention 
under  which  the  psyche  is  most  amenable  to  sugges- 
tion, or  of  the  inward  transfiguration  worked  by  a 
great  self-realizing  idea?  Such  transfiguration  has 
literally  on  the  physical  plane  caused  the  blind  to 
see,  the  deaf  to  hear,  the  dumb  to  speak:  and  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  to  be  observed  operating  on 
highest  levels  in  the  work  of  salvation.  When  fur- 
ther a  Kempis  prays  "Increase  in  me  more  grace, 
that  I  may  fulfil  Thy  word  and  make  perfect  mine 
own  health"  is  he  not  describing  the  right  balance  to 
be  sought  between  our  surrender  to  the  vivifying 
suggestions  of  grace  and  our  appropriation  and 
manly  use  of  them?  This  is  no  limp  acquiescence 
and  merely  infantile  dependence,  but  another  aspect 
of  the  vital  balance  between  the  indrawing  and  out- 
giving of  power:  and  one  of  the  main  functions  of 

1  De   Imit.   Chrlsti,  Bk.   Ill,   Cap.   58. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LH<E  OF  THE  SPIRIT     141 

prayer  is  to  promote  in  us  that  spiritually  suggest- 
ible state  in  which,  as  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  says, 
we  are  "receptive  of  God." 

It  Is,  then,  worth  our  while  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  spiritual  life  to  inquire  into  the  conditions  in 
which  a  suggestion  is  most  likely  to  be  received  and 
realized  by  us.  These  conditions,  as  psychologists 
have  so  far  defined  them,  can  be  resumed  under  the 
three  heads  of  quiescence,  attention  and  feeling: 
outstanding  characteristics,  as  I  need  not  point  out, 
of  the  state  of  prayer,  all  of  which  can  be  illustrated 
from  the  teaching  and  experience  of  the  mystics. 

First,  let  us  take  Quiescence.  In  order  fully  to 
lay  open  the  unconscious  to  the  influence  of  sug- 
gested ideas,  the  surface  mind  must  be  called  In  from 
its  responses  to  the  outer  world,  or  In  religious  lan- 
guage recollected,  till  the  hum  of  that  world  is 
hardly  perceived  by  it.  The  body  must  be  relaxed, 
making  no  demands  on  the  machinery  controlling 
the  motor  system;  and  the  conditions  in  general 
must  be  those  of  complete  mental  and  bodily  rest. 
Here  is  the  psychological  equivalent  of  that  which 
spiritual  writers  call  the  Quiet:  a  state  defined  by 
one  of  them  as  "a  rest  most  busy."  "Those  who 
are  in  this  prayer,"  says  St.  Teresa,  "wish  their 
bodies  to  remain  motionless,  for  it  seems  to  them 
that  at  the  least  movement  they  will  lose  their  sweet 
peace."  ^  Others  say  that  in  this  state  we  "stop 
the  wheel  of  imagination,"  leave  all  that  we  can 

^  "Way  of  Perfection,"  Cap.  33. 


142  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

think,  sink  into  our  nothingness  or  our  ground.  In 
Ruysbroek's  phrase,  we  are  "inwardly  abiding  in 
simplicity  and  stillness  and  utter  peace" ;  ^  and  this  is 
man's  state  of  maximum  receptivity.  "The  best 
and  noblest  way  in  which  thou  mayst  come  into  this 
work  and  life,"  says  Meister  Eckhart,  "is  by  keeping 
silence  and  letting  God  work  and  speak  .  .  .  when 
we  simply  keep  ourselves  receptive  we  are  more  per- 
fect than  when  at  work."  ^ 

But  this  preparatory  state  of  surrendered  quiet 
must  at  once  be  qualified  by  the  second  point: 
Attention.  It  is  based  upon  the  right  use  of  the 
will,  and  is  not  a  limp  yielding  to  anything  or  noth- 
ing. It  has  an  ordained  deliberate  aim,  is  a  be- 
haviour-cycle directed  to  an  end;  and  this  it  is  that 
marks  out  the  real  and  fruitful  quiet  of  the  contem- 
plative from  the  non-directed  surrender  of  mere 
quietism.  "Nothing,"  says  St.  Teresa,  "is  learnt 
without  a  little  pains.  For  the  love  of  God,  sisters, 
account  that  care  well  employed  that  ye  shall  bestow 
on  this  thing."  ^ 

The  quieted  mind  must  receive  and  hold,  yet  with- 
out discursive  thought,  the  idea  which  it  desires  to 
realize;  and  this  idea  must  interest  and  be  real  for 
it,  so  that  attention  is  concentrated  on  it  sponta- 
neously. The  more  completely  the  idea  absorbs  us, 
the  greater  its  transforming  power:  when  interest 
wavers,  the  suggestion  begins  to  lose  ground.     In 

1  "The  Book  of  the  XII  Beguines,"   Cap.  7. 

-  Meister    Eckhart,   Pred.   I. 

8  "The  Way  of  Perfection,"  Cap.  29. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     143 

spite  of  her  subsequent  relapse  into  quietism 
Madame  Guyon  accurately  described  true  quiet 
when  she  said,  "Our  activity  should  consist  in  en- 
deavouring to  acquire  and  maintain  such  a  state  as 
may  be  most  susceptible  of  divine  impressions,  most 
flexile  to  all  the  operations  of  the  Eternal  Word."  ^ 
Such  concentration  can  be  improved  by  practice ; 
hence  the  value  of  regular  meditation  and  contem- 
plation to  those  who  are  in  earnest  about  the  spir- 
itual life,  the  quiet  and  steady  holding  in  the  mind  of 
the  thought  which  it  is  desired  to  realize. 

Psycho-therapists  tell  us  that,  having  achieved 
quiescence,  we  should  rapidly  and  rythmically,  but 
with  intention,  repeat  the  suggestion  that  we  wish 
to  realize;  and  that  the  shorter,  simpler  and  more 
general  this  verbal  formula,  the  more  effective  it 
will  be.^  The  spiritual  aspect  of  this  law  was  well 
understood  by  the  mediseval  mystics.  Thus  the 
author  of  "The  Cloud  of  Unknowing"  says  to  his 
disciple,  "Fill  thy  spirit  with  ghostly  meaning  of 
this  word  Sin,  and  without  any  special  beholding 
unto  any  kind  of  sin,  whether  it  be  venial  or  deadly. 
And  cry  thus  ghostly  ever  upon  one :  Sin  I  Sin !  Sin ! 
out!  out!  out!  This  ghostly  cry  is  better  learned 
of  God  by  the  proof  than  of  any  man  by  word.  For 
it  is  best  when  it  is  in  pure  spirit,  without  special 
thought  or  any  pronouncing  of  word.  On  the  same 
manner  shalt  thou  do  with  this  little  word  God:  and 
mean  God  all,  and  all  God,  so  that  nought  work  in 

1  "A  Short  and  Easy  Method  of  Prayer,"  Cap.  21. 

2  Baudouin:   "Suggestion  and  Auto-Suggestion,"  Pt.  II,  Cap  6. 


144  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

thy  wit  and  In  thy  will  but  only  God."  ^  Here  the 
directions  are  exact,  and  such  as  any  psychologist  of 
the  present  day  might  give.  So  too,  religious 
teachers  informed  by  experience  have  always  as- 
cribed a  special  efficacy  to  "short  acts"  of  prayer  and 
aspiration:  phrases  repeated  or  held  in  the  mind, 
which  sum  up  and  express  the  self's  penitence,  love, 
faith  or  adoration,  and  are  really  brief,  articulate 
suggestions  parallel  in  type  to  those  which  Bau- 
douin  recommends  to  us  as  conducive  to  bodily  well- 
being.-  The  repeated  affirmation  of  Julian  of  Nor- 
wich "All  shall  be  well!  all  shall  be  well!  all  shall 
be  well!  "  ^  fills  all  her  revelations  with  its  sugges- 
tion of  joyous  faith;  and  countless  generations  of 
Christians  have  thus  applied  to  their  soul's  health 
those  very  methods  by  which  we  are  now  enthusias- 
tically curing  indigestion  and  cold  in  the  head.  The 
articulate  repetition  of  such  phrases  increases  their 
suggestive  power;  for  the  unconscious  is  most  easily 
reached  by  way  of  the  ear.  This  fact  throws  light 
on  the  immemorial  insistence  of  all  great  religions 
on  the  peculiar  value  of  vocal  prayer,  whether  this 
be  the  manlra  of  the  Hindu  or  the  dikr  of  the  Mos- 
lem; and  explains  the  instinct  which  causes  the 
Catholic  Church  to  require  from  her  priests  the  ver- 
bal repetition,  not  merely  the  silent  reading  of  their 
daily  office.  Hence,  too,  there  is  real  educative 
value  in  such  devotions  as  the  rosary;  and  the  Pro- 

1  Op.  cit.  Cap.  40. 

2Baiuloiiin:  "Suggestion  and  Auto-Suggestion,"  loc.  cit. 

3  "Revelations   of   Divine   Love,"   Cap.   27. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     145 

testant  Churches  showed  little  psychological  insight 
when  they  abandoned  It.  Such  "vain"  repetitions, 
however  much  the  rational  mind  may  dislike,  dis- 
credit or  denounce  them,  have  power  to  penetrate 
and  modify  the  deeper  psychic  levels;  alwa3^s  pro- 
vided that  they  conflict  with  no  accepted  belief,  are 
weighted  with  meaning  and  desire,  with  the  Intent 
stretched  towards  God,  and  are  not  allowed  to  be- 
come merely  mechanical — the  standing  danger  alike 
of  all  verbal  suggestion  and  all  vocal  prayer. 

Here  we  touch  the  third  character  of  effective 
suggestion :  Feeling.  When  the  Idea  Is  charged 
with  emotion,  it  is  far  more  likely  to  be  realized. 
War  neuroses  have  taught  us  the  dreadful  potency 
of  the  emotional  stimulus  of  fear;  but  this  power 
of  feeling  over  the  unconscious  has  Its  good  side 
too.  Here  we  find  psychology  justifying  the  often 
criticized  emotional  element  of  religion.  Its  func- 
tion Is  to  increase  the  energy  of  the  idea.  The  cool, 
judicious  type  of  belief  will  never  possess  the  life- 
changing  power  of  a  more  fervid,  though  perhaps 
less  rational  faith.  Thus  the  state  of  corporate 
suggestibility  generated  In  a  revival  and  on  which 
the  success  of  that  revival  depends,  is  closely  related 
to  the  emotional  character  of  the  appeal  which  is 
made.  And,  on  higher  levels,  we  see  that  the  trans- 
figured lives  and  heroic  energies  of  the  great  figures 
of  Christian  history  all  represent  the  realization  of 
an  Idea  of  which  the  heart  was  an  impassioned  love 
of  God,  subduing  to  Its  purposes  all  the  impulses 


146  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

and  powers  of  the  inner  man.  "If  you  would  truly 
know  how  these  things  come  to  pass,"  said  St.  Bon- 
aventura,  "ask  it  of  desire  not  of  intellect;  of  the 
ardours  of  prayer,  not  of  the  teaching  of  the 
schools."  *  More  and  more  psychology  tends  to  en- 
dorse the  truth  of  these  words. 

Quiescence,  attention,  and  emotional  interest  are 
then  the  conditions  of  successful  suggestion.  We 
have  further  to  notice  two  characteristics  whicfh  have 
been  described  by  the  Nancy  school  of  psychologists; 
and  which  are  of  some  importance  for  those  who 
wish  to  understand  the  mechanism  of  religious  ex- 
perience. These  have  been  called  the  law  of  Un- 
conscious Teleology,  and  the  law  of  Reversed 
Effort. 

The  law  of  unconscious  teleology  means  that 
when  an  end  has  been  effedtively  suggested  to  it,  the 
unconscious  mind  will  always  tend  to  work  towards 
its  realization.  Thus  in  psycho-therapeutics  it  is 
found  that  a  general  suggestion  of  good  health  made 
to  the  sick  person  is  often  enough.  The  doctor  may 
not  himself  know  enough  about  the?  malady  to  sug- 
gest stage  by  stage  the  process  of  cure.  But  he 
suggests  that  cure;  and  the  necessary  changes  and 
adjustments  required  for  its  realization  are  made 
unconsciously,  under  the  influence  of  the  dynamic 
idea.  Here  the  direction  of  "The  Cloud  of  Un- 
knowing," "Look  that  nothing  live  in  thy  working 
mind  but  a  naked  intent  directed  to  God"  ^ — suggest- 

1  "De    Itjnerario    Mentis   in   Deo,"    Cap.    7. 

2  Op.  cit.,  Cap.  43. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LH  E  OF  THE  SPIRIT     147 

ing  as  it  does  to  the  psyche  the  ontological  Object  of 
faith — strikingly  anticipates  the  last  conclusions  of 
science.  Further,  a  fervent  belief  in  the  end  pro- 
posed, a  conviction  of  success,  is  by  no  means  essen- 
tial. Far  more  important  is  a  humble  willingness 
to  try  the  method,  give  it  a  chance.  That  which 
reason  may  not  grasp,  the  deeper  mind  may  seize 
upon  and  realize;  always  provided  that  the  intellect 
does  not  set  up  resistances.  This  is  found  to  be 
true  in  medical  practice,  and  religious  teachers  have 
always  declared  it  to  be  true  in  the  spiritual  sphere; 
holding  obedience,  humility,  and  a  measure  of  resig- 
nation, not  spiritual  vision,  to  be  the  true  requisites 
for  the  reception  of  grace,  the  healing  and  renova- 
tion of  the  soul.  Thus  acquiescence  in  belief,  and 
loyal  and  steady  co-operation  in  the  corporate  reli- 
gious life  are  often  seen  to  work  for  good  in  those 
who  submit  to  them;  though  these  may  lack,  as  they 
frequently  say,  the  "spiritual  sense."  And  this  hap- 
pens, not  by  magic,  but  in  conformity  with  psycho- 
logical law. 

This  tendency  of  the  unconscious  self  to  realize 
without  criticism  a  suggested  end  lays  on  religious 
teachers  the  obligation  of  forming  a  clear  and  vital 
conception  of  the  spiritual  Ideals  which  they  wish  to 
suggest,  whether  to  themselves  in  their  meditations 
or  to  others  by  their  teaching:  to  be  sure  that  they 
are  wholesome,  and  really  tend  to  fullness  of  life. 
It  should  also  compel  each  of  us  to  scrutinize  those 
religious  thoughts  and  images  which  we  receive  and 


148  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

on  which  we  allow  our  minds  to  dwell:  excluding 
those  that  are  merely  sentimental,  wealc  or  other- 
wise unworthy,  and  holding  fast  the  noblest  and 
most  beautiful  that  we  can  find.  For  these  ideas, 
however  generalized,  will  set  up  profound  changes 
in  the  mind  that  receives  them.  Thus  the  wrong 
conception  of  self-immolation  will  be  faithfully 
worked  out  by  the  unconscious — and  has  been  too 
often  in  the  past — in  terms  of  misery,  weakness,  or 
disease.  We  remember  how  the  idea  of  herself  as 
a  victim  of  love  worked  physical  destruction  in 
Therese  de  L'  Enfant  Jesus:  and  we  shall  never  per- 
haps know  all  the  havoc  wrought  by  the  once  fashion- 
able doctrines  of  predestination  and  of  the  total  de- 
pravity of  human  nature.  All  this  shows  how  neces- 
sary it  is  to  put  hopeful,  manly,  constructive  concep- 
tions before  those  whom  we  try  to  help  or  instruct; 
constantly  suggesting  to  them  not  the  weak  and 
sinful  things  that  they  are,  but  the  living  and  radiant 
things  which  they  can  become. 

Further,  this  tendency  of  the  received  suggestion 
to  work  out  its  whole  content  for  good  or  evil  within 
the  unconscious  mind,  shows  the  importance  which 
we  ought  to  attach  to  the  tone  of  a  religious  service, 
and  how  close  too  many  of  our  popular  hymns  are 
to  what  one  might  call  psychological  sin;  stressing 
as  they  do  a  childish  weakness  and  love  of  shelter 
and  petting,  a  neurotic  shrinking  from  full  human 
life,  a  morbid  preoccupation  with  failure  and  guilt. 
Such  hymns  make  devitalizing  suggestions,  adverse 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT     149 

to  the  health  and  energy  of  the  spiritual  life;  and 
are  all  the  more  powerful  because  they  are  sung  col-, 
lectlvely  and  in  rhythm,  and  are  cast  in  an  emotional 
mould. ^  There  was  some  truth  in  the  accusation  of 
the  Indian  teacher  Ramakrishna,  that  the  books  of 
the  Christians  insisted  too  exclusively  on  sin.  He 
said,  "He  who  repeats  again  and  again  'I  am  bound  1 
I  am  bound!'  remains  in  bondage.  He  who  repeats 
day  and  night  'I  am  a  sinner!  I  am  a  sinner!'  be- 
comes a  sinner  indeed."  - 

I  go  on  to  the  law  of  Reversed  Effort;  a  psycho- 
logical discovery  which  seems  to  be  of  extreme  im- 
portance for  the  spiritual  life.  Briefly  this  means, 
that  when  any  suggestion  has  entered  the  uncon- 
scious mind  and  there  become  active,  all  our  con- 
scious and  anxious  resistances  to  it  are  not  merely 
useless  but  actually  tend  to  intensify  it.  If  it  is  to 
be  dislodged,  this  will  not  be  accomplished  by  mere 
struggle  but  by  the  persuasive  power  of  another  and 
superior  auto-suggestion.  Further,  in  respect  of 
any  habit  that  we  seek  to  establish,  the  more  desper- 
ate our  struggle  and  sense  of  effort,  the  smaller  will 
be  our  success.  In  small  matters  we  have  all  ex- 
perienced the  working  of  this  law:  In  frustrated 
struggles  to  attend  to  that  which  does  not  interest 

1  Hymns  of  the  Weary  Willie  type:  e.g.  i^^ 

"O   Paradise,   O   Paradise 
Who  does  not  sigh  for  rest?" 
should  never  be  sung  in  congregations   where  the  average  age  is 
less   than    sixty.     Equally   «nsuited   to   general    use    are   those   ex- 
pressing    disillusionment,     anxiety,     or     impotence.     Any     popular 
hymnal   will  provide   an   abundance  of  examples. 

2  Quoted  by  Pratt:  "The  Religious  Consciousness,"  Cap.  7« 


150  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

us,  to  check  a  tiresome  cough,  to  keep  our  balance 
when  learning  to  ride  a  bicycle.  But  it  has  also 
more  important  applications.  Thus  it  indicates 
that  a  deliberate  struggle  to  believe,  to  overcome 
some  moral  weakness,  to  keep  attention  fixed  in 
prayer,  will  tend  to  frustration:  for  this*  anxious 
effort  gives  body  to  our  imaginative  difficulties  and 
sense  of  helplessness,  fixing  attention  on  the  conflict, 
not  on  the  desired  end.  True,  if  this  end  is  to  be 
achiev^ed  the  will  must  be  directed  to  it,  but  only  in 
the  sense  of  giving  steadfast  direction  to  the  desires 
and  acts  of  the  self,  keeping  attention  orientated 
towards  the  goal.  The  pull  of  imaginative  desire, 
not  the  push  of  desperate  effort,  serves  us  best. 
St.  Teresa  well  appreciated  this  law  and  applied  it 
to  her  doctrine  of  prayer.  "If  your  thought,"  she 
says  to  her  daughters,  "runs  after  all  the  fooleries 
of  the  world,  laugh  at  it  and  leave  it  for  a  fool  and 
continue  in  your  quiet  ...  if  you  seek  by  force  of 
arms  to  bring  it  to  you,  you  lose  the  strength  which 
you  have  against  it."  ^ 

This  same  principle  is  implicitly  recognized  by 
those  theologians  who  declare  that  man  can  "do 
nothing  of  himself,"  that  mere  voluntary  struggle 
is  useless,  and  regeneration  comes  by  surrender  to 
grace:  by  yielding,  that  is,  to  the  inner  urge,  to 
those  sources  of  power  which  flow  in,  but  are  not 
dragged  in.  Indications  of  its  truth  meet  us  every- 
where in  spiritual  literature.     Thus  Jacob  Boehme 

1  "The    Way    of   Perfection,"    Cap.    31. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT    151 

says,  "Because  thou  strivest  against  that  out  of  which 
thou  art  come,  thou  breakest  thyself  off  with  thy 
own  willing  from  God's  willing."  ^  So  too  the  con- 
stant invitations  to  let  God  work  and  speak,  to  sur- 
render, are  all  invitations  to  cease  anxious  strife  and 
effort  and  give  the  Divine  suggestions  their  chance. 
The  law  of  reversed  effort,  in  fact,  is  valid  on  every 
level  of  life;  and  warns  us  against  the  error  of  mak- 
ing religion  too  grim  and  strenuous  an  affair.  Cer- 
tainly in  all  life  of  the  Spirit  the  will  is  active,  and 
must  retain  Its  conscious  and  steadfast  orientation 
to  God.  Heroic  activity  and  moral  effort  must 
form  an  integral  part  of  full  human  experience. 
Yet  it  Is  clearly  possible  to  make  too  much  of  the 
process  of  wrestling  evil.  An  attention  chiefly 
and  anxiously  concentrated  on  the  struggle  with  sins 
and  weaknesses,  instead  of  on  the  eternal  sources  of 
happiness  and  power,  will  offer  the  unconscious  harm- 
ful suggestions  of  impotence  and  hence  tend  to 
frustration.  The  early  ascetics,  who  made  elabor- 
ate preparations  for  dealing  with  temptations,  got 
as  an  Inevitable  result  plenty  of  temptations  with 
which  to  deal.  A  sounder  method  is  taught  by  the 
mystics.  "When  thoughts  of  sin  press  on  thee," 
says  "The  Cloud  of  Unknowing,"  "look  over  their 
shoulders  seeking  another  thing,  the  which  thing 
is  God."  2 

These  laws  of  suggestion,  taken  together,  all  seem 

i"The  Way  to  Christ,"  Pt.  IV. 
2  Op.  cit.,  Cap-  32. 


152  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

to  point  one  way.  They  exhibit  the  human  self  as 
living,  plastic,  changeful;  perpetually  modified  by 
the  suggestions  pouring  in  on  it,  the  experiences 
and  intuitions  to  which  it  reacts.  Every  thought, 
prayer,  enthusiasm,  fear,  is  of  importance  to  it. 
Nothing  leaves  it  as  it  was  before.  The  soul,  said 
Boehme,  stands  both  in  heaven  and  in  hell.  Keep 
it  perpetually  busy  at  the  window  of  the  senses,  feed 
it  with  unlovely  and  materialistic  ideas,  and  those 
ideas  will  realize  themselves.  Give  the  contem- 
plative faculty  its  chance,  let  it  breathe  at  least  for 
a  few  moments  of  each  day  the  spiritual  atmos- 
phere of  faith,  hope  and  love,  and  the  spiritual  life 
will  at  least  in  some  measure  be  realized  by  it. 


CHAPTER  V 

INSTITUTIONAL   RELIGION   AND  THE    LIFE   OF 
THE    SPIRIT 

So  far,  in  considering  what  psychology  had  to  tell 
us  about  the  conditions  in  which  our  spiritual  life 
can  develop,  and  the  mental  machinery  it  can  use, 
we  have  been,  deliberately,  looking  at  men  one  by 
one.  We  have  left  on  one  side  all  those  questfons 
which  relate  to  the  corporate  aspect  of  the  spiritual 
life,  and  its  expression  in  religious  institutions; 
that  is  to  say,  in  churches  and  cults.  We  have 
looked  upon  it  as  a  personal  growth  and  response; 
a  personal  reception  of,  and  self-orientation  to. 
Reality.  But  we  cannot  get  away  from  the  fact 
that  this  regenerate  life  does  most  frequently  appear 
in  history  associated  with,  or  creating  for  itself,  a 
special  kind  of  institution.  Although  it  is  impos- 
sible to  look  upon  it  as  the  appearance  of  a  favour- 
able variation  within  the  species,  it  is  also  just  as 
possible  to  look  upon  it  as  the  formation  of  a  new 
herd  or  tribe.  Where  the  variation  appears,  and 
in  its  sense  of  newness,  youth  and  vigour  breaks 
away  from  the  institution  within  which  it  has  arisen, 
it  generally  becomes  the  nucleus  about  which  a  new 
group  is  formed.     So  that  individualism  and  gre- 

153 


154  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

garlousness  are  both  represented  in  the  full  life 
of  the  Spirit;  and  however  personal  its  achievement 
may  seem  to  us,  it  has  also  a  definitely  corporate  and 
institutional  aspect. 

I  now  propose  to  take  up  this  side  of  the  subject, 
and  try  to  suggest  one  or  two  lines  of  thought  which 
may  help  us  to  discover  the  meaning  and  worth  of 
such  societies  and  institutions.  For  after  all,  some 
explanation  is  needed  of  these  often  strange 
symbolic  systems,  and  often  rigid  mechani- 
zations, imposed  on  the  fre^  responses  to  Eternal 
Reality  which  we  found  to  constitute  the  essence 
of  religious  experience.  Any  one  who  has  known 
even  such  direct  communion  with  the  Spirit  as  is  pos- 
sible to  normal  Kuman  nature  must,  if  he  thinks  out 
the  implications  of  his  own  experience,  feel  it  to 
be  inconsistent  that  this  most  universal  of  all  acts 
should  be  associated  by  men  with  the  most  exclusive 
of  all  types  of  institution.  It  is  only  because  we  are 
so  accustomed  to  this — taking  churches  for  granted, 
even  when  we  reject  them — that  we  do  not  se!e  how 
odd  they  really  are :  how  curious  it  is  that  men  do 
not  set  up  exclusive  and  mutually  hostile  clubs  full 
of  rules  and  regulations  to  enjoy  the  light  of  the  sun 
in  particular  times  and  fashions,  but  do  persistently 
set  up  such  exclusives  clubs  full  of  rules  and  regula- 
tions, so  to  enjoy  the  free  Spirit  of  God. 

When  we  look  into  history  we  see  the  life  of  the 
Spirit,  even  from  its  crudest  beginnings,  closely 
associated  with  two  movements.     First  with  the  ten- 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  155 

dency  to  organize  it  in  communities  or  churches,  liv- 
ing under  special  sanctions  and  rules.  Next,  with 
the  tendency  of  its  greatest,  most  arresting  person- 
alities either  to  revolt  from  these  organisms  or  to 
reform,  rekindle  them  from  within.  So  that  the  in- 
stitutional life  of  religion  persists  through  or  in  spite 
of  its  own  constant  tendency  to  stiffen  and  lose  fer- 
vour, and  the  secessions,  protests,  or  renewals  which 
are  occasioned  by  its  greatest  sons.  Thus  our 
Lord  protested  against  Jewish  formalism;  many 
Catholic  mystics,  and  afterwards  the  best  of  the  Pro- 
testant reformers,  against  Roman  formalism; 
George  Fox  against  one  type  of  Protestant  formal- 
ism; the  Oxford  movement  against  another.  This 
constant  antagonism  of  church  and  prophet,  of  insti- 
tutional authority  and  individual  vision,  is  not  only 
true  of  Christianity  but  of  all  great  historical  faiths. 
In  the  middle  ages  Kabir  and  Nanak,  and  in  our  own 
times  the  leaders  of  the  Brahmo  Samaj,  break  away 
from  and  denounce  ceremonial  Hinduism:  again 
and  again  the  great  Siifis  have  led  reforms  within 
Islam.  That  which  we  are  now  Concerned  to  dis- 
cover is  the  necessity  underlying  this  conflict:  the 
extent  in  which  the  institution  on  one  hand  serves 
the  spiritual  life,  and  on  the  other  cramps  or  opposes 
its  free  development.  It  is  a  truism  that  all  such 
institutions  tend  to  degenerate,  to  become  me- 
chanical, and  to  tyrannize.  Are  they  then,  in  spite 
of  these  adverse  characters,  to  be  looked  on  as  es- 
sential, inevitable,  or  merely  desirable  expressions 


156  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

of  the  spiritual  life  in  man;  or  can  this  spiritual  life 
flourish  in  pure  freedom? 

This  question,  often  put  in  the  crucial  form,  "Did 
Jesus  Christ  intend  to  form  a  Church?"  is  well 
worth  asking.  Indeed,  it  is  of  great  pressing  im- 
portance to  those  who  now  have  the  spiritual  recon- 
struction of  society  at  heart.  It  means,  in  practice: 
can  men  best  be  saved,  regenerated,  one  by  one,  by 
their  direct  responses  to  the  action  of  the  Spirit;  or, 
is  the  life  of  the  Spirit  best  found  and  actualized 
through  submission  to  tradition  and  contacts  with 
other  men — that  is,  in  a  group  or  church?  And  if 
in  a  group  or  church,  what  should  the  character  of 
this  society  be?  But  we  shall  make  no  real  move- 
ment towards  solving  this  problem,  unless  we  aban- 
don both  the  standpoint  of  authority,  and  that  of 
naive  religious  individualism;  and  consent  to  look  at 
it  as  a  part  of  the  general  problem  of  human  society, 
in  the  light  of  history,  of  psychology,  and  of  ethics. 

I  think  we  may  say  without  exaggeration  that  the 
general  modern  judgment — not,  of  course,  the 
clerical  or  orthodox  judgment — is  adverse  to  in- 
stitutionalism;  at  least  as  it  now  exists.  In  spite 
of  the  enormous  improvement  which  would  certainly 
be  visible,  were  we  to  compare  the  average  ecclesi- 
astical attitude  and  average  Church  service  in  this 
country  with  those  of  a  hundred  years  ago,  the  sense 
that  religion  involves  submission  to  the  rules  and 
discipline  of  a  closed  society — that  definite  spiritual 
gains  ar'e  attached  to  spiritual  incorporation — that 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  157 

church-going,  formal  and  corporate  worship,  Is  a 
normal  and  necessary  part  of  the  routine  of  a  good 
life:  all  this  has  certainly  ceased  to  be  general 
amongst  us.  If  we  include  the  whole  population, 
and  not  the  pious  fraction  in  our  view,  this  Is  true 
both  of  so-called  Catholic  and  so-called  Protestant 
countries.  Professor  Pratt  has  lately  described 
80  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the  United  States 
as  being  "unchurched" ;  and  all  who  worked  among 
our  soldiers  at  the  front  were  struck  by  the  para- 
dox of  the  immense  amount  of  natural  religion  exist- 
ing among  them,  combined  with  almost  total  aliena- 
tion from  religious  institutions.  Those,  too,  who 
study  and  care  for  the  spiritual  life  seem  most  often 
to  conceiv^e  it  in  the  terms  of  William  James's  well- 
known  definition  of  religion  as  "the  feelings,  acts  and 
experiences  of  individual  men  in  their  solitude,  so 
far  as  they  apprehend  themselves  to  stand  in  rela- 
tion to  whatever  they  may  consider  the  Divine."  ^ 

Such  a  life  of  the  Spirit — and  the  majority  of  ed- 
ucated men  would  probably  accept  this  description 
of  it — seems  little  If  at  all  conditioned  by  Church 
membership.  It  speaks  In  secret  to  its  Father  In 
secret;  and  private  devotion  and  self-discipline  seem 
to  be  all  it  needs.  Yet  looking  at  history,  we  see 
that  this  conception,  this  completeness  of  emphasis 
on  first-hand  solitary  seeking,  this  one-by-one  achieve- 
ment of  Eternity,  has  not  in  fact  proved  t'ruly  frult- 

1  William  James:  "The   Varieties  of  Religious   Experience,"   p. 
31- 


158  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ful  in  the  past.  Where  it  seems  so  to  be  fruitful, 
the  soHtude  is  illusory.  Each  great  regenerator 
and  revealer  of  Reality,  each  God-intoxicated  soul 
achieving  transcendence,  owes  something  to  its 
predecessors  and  contemporaries.^  All  great  spir- 
itual achievement,  like  all  great  artistic  achievement, 
however  spontaneous  it  may  seem  to  be,  however 
much  the  fruit  of  a  personal  love  and  vision,  is 
firmly  rooted  in  the  racial  past.  It!  fulfills  rather 
than  destroys;  and  unless  its  free  movement  towards 
novelty,  fresh  levels  of  pure  experience,  be  thus  bal- 
anced by  the  stability  which  is  given  us  by  our 
hoarded  traditions  and  formed  habits,  it  will  degen- 
erate into  eccentricity  and  fail  of  its  full  effect.  Al- 
though nothing  but  first-hand  discovery  of  and  re- 
sponse to  spiritual  values  is  in  the  end  of  any  use  to 
us,  that  discovery  and  that  response  are  never  quite 
such  a  single-handed  affair  as  we  like  to  suppose. 
Memory  and  environment,  natural  and  cultural,  play 
their  part.  And  the  next  most  natural  and  fruitful 
movement  after  such  a  personal  discovery  of  abiding 
Reality,  such  a  transfiguration  of  life,  is  always  back 
towards  our  fellow-men;  to  learn  more  from  them, 
to  unite  with  them,  to  help  them — anyhow  to  re- 
affirm our  solidarity  with  them.  The  great  men 
and  women  of  the  Spirit,  then,  either  use  their  new 
power  and  joy  to  restore  existing  institutions  to  fuller 
vitality,  as  did  the  successive  regenerators  of  the 

^  On  this  point  compare  Von  Hiigel:  "Essays  and  Addresses  on 
the   Philosophy    of   Religion,"    pp.    230  et   seq. 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  159 

monastic  life,  such  as  St.  Bernard  and  St.  Teresa 
and  many  Sufi  saints;  or  they  form  new  groups,  new 
organisms  which  they  can  animate,  as  did  St.  Paul, 
St.  Francis,  Kablr,  Fox,  Wesley,  Booth.  One  and 
all,  they  feel  that  the  full  robust  life  of  the  Spirit  de- 
mands some  Incarnation,  some  place  in  history  and 
social  outlet,  and  also  some  fixed  discipline  and  tradi- 
tion. 

In  fact,  not  only  the  history  of  the  soul,  but  that  of 
all  full  human  achievement,  as  studied  in  great  crea- 
tive personalities,  shows  us  that  such  achievement 
has  always  two  sides.  ( i )  There  is  the  solitary 
vision  or  revelation,  and  personal  work  in  accordance 
with  that  vision.  The  religious  man's  direct  experi- 
ence of  God  and  his  effort  to  correspond  with  it; 
the  artist's  lonely  and  intense  apprehension  of 
beauty,  and  hard  translation  of  it;  the  poet's  dream 
and  its  difficult  expression  in  speech;  the  philoso- 
pher's intuition  of  reality,  hammered  into  thought. 
These  are  personal  immediate  experiences,  and  no 
human  soul  will  reach  its  full  stature  unless  it  can 
have  the  measure  of  freedom  and  withdrawal  which 
they  demand.  But  (2)  there  are  the  social  and 
historical  contacts  which  are  made  by  all  these  crea- 
tive types  with  the  past  and  with  the  present;  all  the 
big  rich  thick  stream  of  human  history  and  effort, 
giving  them,  however  little  they  may  recognize  it, 
the  very  initial  concepts  with  which  they  go  to  their 
special  contact  with  reality,  and  which  colour  it; 
supporting  them  and  demanding  from  them  again 


160  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

their  contribution  to  the  racial  treasury,  and  to  the 
present  too.  Thus  the  artist,  as  well  as  his  solitary 
hours  of  c'ontemplation  and  effort,  ought  to  have  his 
times  alike  of  humble  study  of  the  past  and  of  in- 
tercourse with  other  living  artists;  and  great  and  en- 
during art  forms  more  often  arise  within  a  school, 
than  in  complete  independence  of  tradition.  It 
seems,  then,  that  the  advocates  of  corporate  and 
personal  religion  are  both,  in  a  measure,  right:  and 
that  once  again  a  middle  p'ath,  avoiding  both  ex- 
tremes of  simplification,  keeps  nearest  to  the  facts 
of  life.  We  have  no  reason  for  supposing  that 
these  principles,  which  history  shows  us,  have  ceased 
to  be  operative :  or  that  we  can  secure  the  best  kind 
of  spiritual  progress  for  the  race  by  breaking  with 
the  past  and  the  institutions  in  which  it  is  conserved. 
Institutions  are  in  some  sort  needful  if  life's  balance 
between  stability  and  novelty,  and  our  links  with 
history  and  our  fellowmen,  are  to  be  preserved;  and 
if  wc  are  to  achieve  such  a  fullness  both  of  individ- 
ual and  of  corporate  life  on  highest  levels  as  his- 
tory and  psychology  recommend  to  us. 

The  question  of  this  institutional  side  of  religion, 
and  what  we  should  demand  from  it  falls  into  two 
parts,  which  will  best  be  treated  separately*.  First, 
that  which  concerns  the  character  and  usefulness  of 
the  group-organization  or  society:  the  Church. 
Secondly,  that  which  relates  to  its  peculiar  practices: 
the  Cult.  We  must  enquire  under  each  head  what 
are  their  necessary  characters,  their  essential  gifts 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  161 

to  the  soul,  and  what  their  dangers  and  limita- 
tions. 

First,  then,  the  Church.  What  does  a  Church 
really  do  for  the  God-desiring  individual;  the  soul 
that  wants  to  live  a  full,  complete  and  real  life, 
which  has  "felt  in  its  solitude"  the  presence  and 
compulsion  of  Eternal  Reality  under  one  or  other 
of  the  forms  of  religious  experience? 

I  think  we  can  say  that  the  Church  or  institution 
gives  to  its  loyal  members : — 

( 1 )  Group-consciousness. 

(2)  Religious  union,  not  only  with  its  contem- 

poraries but  with  the  race,  that  is  with 
history.  This  we  may  regard  as  an  ex- 
tension into  the  past — and  so  an  enrich- 
ment— of  that  group-consciousness. 

(3)  'Discipline;    and   with   discipline    a    sort   of 

spiritual  grit,  which  carries  our  fluctuating 
souls  past  and  over  the  inevitably  recurring 
periods  of  slackness,  and  corrects  subjecti- 
vism. 

(4)  It  gives  Culture,  handing  on  the  discoveries 

of  the  saints. 
In  so  far  as  the  free-lance  gets  any  of  these  four 
things,  he  gets  them  ultimately,  though  indirectly, 
from  some  institutional  source. 

On  the  other  hand  the  institution,  since  it  repre- 
sents the  element  of  stability  in  life,  does  not  give, 
and  must  not  be  expected  to  give,  direct  spiritual 
experience;  or  any  onward  push  towards  novelty, 


162  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

freshness  of  discovery  and  interpretation  in  the 
spiritual  sphere.  Its  dangers  and  limitations  will 
abide  in  a  certain  dislike  of  such  freshness  of  dis- 
covery; the  tendency  to  exalt  the  corporate  and 
stable  and  discount  the  mobile  and  individual.  Its 
natural  instinct  will  be  for  exclusivism,  the  club-idea, 
conservatism*  and  cosiness;  it  will,  if  left  to  itself, 
revel  in  the  middle-aged  atmosphere  and  exhibit 
the  middle-aged  point  of  view. 

We  can  now  consider  these  points  in  greater  de- 
tail: and  first  that  of  the  religious  group-conscious- 
ness which  a  church  should  give  its  members.  This 
is  of  a  special  kind.  It  is  axiomatic  that  group-or- 
ganization of  some  sort  is  a  necessity  of  human 
life.  History  showed  us  the  tendency  of  all  spirit- 
ual movements  to  embody  themselves,  if  not  in 
churches  at  least  in  some  group-form;  the  paradox 
of  each  successive  revolt  from  a  narrow  or  decadent 
institutlonalism  forming  a  group  in  its  turn,  or 
perishing  when  its  first  fervour  died.  But  this  social 
impulse,  these  spontaneous  group-formations  of 
master  and  disciples,  valuable  though  they  may  be, 
do  not  fully  exhibit  all  that  is  meant  or  done  by  a 
church.  True,  the  Church  is  or  should  be  at  each 
moment  of  its  career  such  a  living  spiritual  society 
or  household  of  faith.  It  is,  essentially,  a  commu- 
nity of  persons,  who  have  or  should  have  a  common 
sentiment — belief  in,  and  reverence  for,  their  God 
— and  a  common  defined  aim,  the  furtherance  of 
the  spiritual  life  under  the  special  religious  sane- 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  163 

tions  which  they  accept.  But  every  sect,  every  re- 
ligious order  or  guild,  every  class-meeting,  might 
claim  this  much;  yet  none  of  these  can  claim  to  be 
a  church. 

A  church  is  far  more  than  this.  In  so  far  as  it 
is  truly  alive,  it  is  a  real  organism,  as  distinguished 
from  a  crowd  or  collection  of  persons  with  a  com- 
mon purpose.  It  exhibits  on  the  religious  plane  the 
ruling  characters  of  such  organized  life :  that  is  to 
say,  the  development  of  tradition  and  complex  hab- 
its, the  differentiation  of  function,  the  docility  to 
leadership,  the  conservation  of  values,  or  carrying 
forward  of  the  past  into  the  present.  It  is,  like  the 
State,  embodied  histon/;  and  as  such  lives  with  its 
own  life,  a  life  transcending  and  embracing  that  of 
the  individual  souls  of  which  It  Is  built.  And  here, 
In  its  combined  social  and  historic  character,  lie  the 
sources  alike  of  Its  enormous  Importance  for  human 
life  and  of  its  Inevitable  defects. 

Professor  McDougall,  in  his  discussion  of  na- 
tional groups,^  has  laid  down  the  conditions  which 
are  necessary  to  the  development  of  such  a  true 
organic  group  life  as  is  seen  In  a  living  church. 
These  are :  first,  continuity  of  existence,  in- 
volving the  development  of  a  body  of  traditions, 
customs  and  practices — that  Is,  for  religion,  a  Cul- 
tus.  Next,  an  authoritative  organization  through 
which  custom  and  belief  can  be  transmitted — that 
Is,  a  Hierarchy,  order  of  ministers,  or  its  equivalent. 

1  W.  McDoMgall:  "The  Group  Mind,"  Cap.  3. 


164  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

Third,  a  conscious  common  interest,  belief,  or 
idea — Creed.  Last,  the  existence  of  antagonistic 
groups  or  conditions,  developing  loyalty  or  keen- 
ness. These  characters — continuity,  authority,  com- 
mon belief  and  loyalty — which  are  shown,  as  he 
says,  in  their  completeness  in  a  patriot  army,  are  I 
think  no  less  marked  features  of  a  living  spiritual 
society.  Plain  examples  are  the  primitive  Chris- 
tian communities,  the  great  religious  orders  in  their 
flourishing  time,  the  Society  of  Friends.  They  are 
on  the  whole  more  fully  evident  in  the  Catholic 
than  in  the  Protestant  type  of  church.  But  I  think 
that  we  may  look  upon  them,  in  some  form  or  an- 
other, as  essential  to  any  institutional  framework 
which  shall  really  help  the  spiritual  life  in  man. 

We  find  ourselves,  then,  committed  to  the  picture 
of  a  church  or  spiritual  institution  which  is  in  es- 
sence Liturgic,  Ecclesiastical,  Dogmatic,  and  Mili- 
tant, as  best  fulfilling  the  requirements  of  group 
psychology.  Four  decidedly  Indigestible  morsels 
for  the  modern  mind.  Yet,  group-feeling  demands 
some  common  expression  if  it  Is  to  be  lifted  from 
notion  to  fact.  Discipline  requires  some  authority, 
and  some  devotion  to  it.  Culture  involves  a  tradi- 
tion handed  on.  And  these,  we  said,  were  the  chief 
gifts  which  the  institution  had  to  give  to  its  mem- 
bers. We  may  therefore  keep  them  In  mind,  as 
representing  actual  values,  and  warning  us  that 
neither  history  nor  psychology  encourages  the  be- 
lief that  an  amiable  fluidity  serves  the  highest  pur- 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  165 

poses  of  life.  Some  common  practice  and  custom, 
keeping  the  individual  in  line  with  the  main  ten- 
dencies of  the  group,  providing  rails  on  which,  the 
instinctive  life  can  run  and  machinery  by  which 
fruitful  suggestions  can  be  spread.  Some  real  dis- 
cipline and  humbling  submission  to  rule.  Some  tra- 
ditional and  theological  standard.  Some  mission- 
ary effort  and  enthusiasm.  For  these  four  things 
we  must  find  place  in  any  incorporation  of  the  spir- 
itual life  which  is  to  have  its  full  effect  upon  the 
souls  of  men.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  pe- 
riodical revolts  against  churches  and  ecclesiasticism, 
are  never  against  societies  in  which  all  these  char- 
acteristics are  still  alive:  but  against  those  which 
retain  and  exaggerate  formal  tradition  and  author- 
ity, whilst  they  have  lost  zest  and  identity  of  aim. 

A  real  Church  has  therefore  something  to  give 
to,  and  something  to  demand  from  each  of  its 
members,  and  there  is  a  genuine  loss  for  man'  in 
being  unchurched.  Because  it  endures  through  a 
perpetual  process  of  discarding  and  renewal,  those 
members  will  share  the  richness  and  experience  of  a 
spiritual  life  far  exceeding  their  own  time-span;  a 
truth  which  is  enshrined  in  the  beautiful  concep- 
tion of  the  Communion  of  Saints.  They  enter  a 
group  consciousness  which  reinforces  their  own  In 
the  extent  to  which  they  surrender  to  it;  which  sur- 
rounds them  with  favourable  suggestions  and  gives 
the  precision  of  habit  to  their  instinct  for  Eternity. 
The  special  atmosphere,  the  hoarded  beauty,   the 


166  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

evocative  yet  often  archaic  symbolism  of  a  Gothic 
Cathedral,  with  its  constant  reminiscences  of  past 
civilizations  and  old  levels  of  culture,  Its  broken 
fragments  and  abandoned  altars,  its  conservation 
of  eternal  truths — the  intimate  union  in  it  of  the 
sublime  and  homely,  the  successive  and  abiding  as- 
pects of  reality — make  It  the  most  fitting  of  all 
images  of  the  Church,  regarded  as  the  spiritual  in- 
stitution of  humanity.  And  the  perhaps  undue  con- 
servatism commonly  associated  with  Cathedral 
circles  represents  too  the  chief  reproach  which  can 
be  brought  against  churches — their  tendency  to  pre- 
serve stability  at  the  expense  of  novelty,  to  crys- 
tallize, to  cling  to  habits  and  customs  which  n.o 
longer  serve  a  useful  end.  In  this  a  church  Is  like 
a  home;  where  old  bits  of  furniture  have  a  way 
of  hanging  on,  and  old  habits,  sometimes  absurd, 
endure.  Yet  both  the  home  and  the  church  can 
give  something  which  is  nowhere  else  obtainable  by 
us,  and  represent  values  which  It  Is  perilous  to  Ig- 
nore. When  once  the  historical  character  of  re- 
ality Is  fully  grasped  by  us,  we  see  that  some  such 
organization  through  which  achieved  values  are  con- 
served and  carried  forward,  useful  habits  are 
learn,ed  and  practised,  the  direct  Intuitions  of  genius, 
the  prophet's  revelation  of  reality  are  Interpreted 
and  handed  on,  Is  essential  to  the  spiritual  conti- 
nuity of  the  race :  and  that  definite  churchmanship  of 
some  sort,  or  Its  equivalent,  must  be  a  factor  in 
the  spiritual  reconstruction  of  society. 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  167 

As,  other  things  being  equal,  a  baby  benefits 
enormously  by  being  born  within  the  social  frame- 
work rather  than  in  the  illusory  freedom  of  "pure" 
nature;  so  the  growth  of  the  soul  is,  or  should  be, 
helped  and  not  hindered  by  the  nurture  it  receives 
from  the  religious  society  in  which  it  is  born.  Only 
indeed  by  attachment,  open,  or  virtual,  through  life 
or  through  literature,  to  some  such  group  can  the 
new  soul  link  itself  with  history,  and  so  participate 
in  the  hoarded  spiritual  values  of  humanity.  Thus 
even  a  general  survey  of  life  inclines  us  at  least  to 
some  appreciation  of  the  principle  laid  down  by 
Baron  von  Hiigel  in  "Eternal  Life" — namely,  that 
"souls  who  live  an  heroic  spiritual  life  within  great 
religious  traditions  and  Institutions,  attain  to  a 
rare  volume  and  vividness  of  religious  insight,  con- 
viction and  reality"  ^ — seldom  within  reach  of  the 
contemplative,  however  ardent,  who  walks  by  him- 
self. 

History  has  given  one  reason  for  this;  psychology 
gives  another.  These  souls,  living  it  is  true  with 
intensity  their  own  life  towards  God,  share  and 
are  'bathed  in  the  group  consciousness  of  their 
church;  as  members  of  a  family,  distinct  in  tem- 
perament, share  and  are  modified  by  the  group  con- 
sciousness of  the  home.  The  mental  process  of 
the  Individual  is  profoundly  affected  when  he  thus 
thinks  and  acts  as  a  member  of  a  group.  Sugges- 
tibility is  then  enormously  increased;  and  we  know 

^  Von   Hugel   "Eternal   Life,"   p.   377. 


168  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

how  much  suggestion  means  to  us.  Moreover,  sug- 
gestions emanating  from  the  group  always  take 
priority  of  those  of  the  outside  world:  for  man  is 
a  gregarious  animal,  intensely  sensitive  to  the  men- 
tality of  the  herd.^  The  Mind  of  the  Church  is 
therefore  a  real  thing.  The  individual  easily  takes 
colour  from  it  and  the  tradition  it  embodies,  tends 
to  imitate  his  fellow-members:  and  each  such  deed 
and  thought  is  a  step  taken  in  the  formation  of 
habit,  and  leaves  him  other  than  he  was  before. 

To  say  this  is  not  to  discredit  church-membership 
as  placing  us  at  the  mercy  of  emotional  suggestion, 
reducing  spontaneity  to  custom,  and  lessening  the 
energy  and  responsibility  of  the  individual  soul  to- 
wards God.  On  the  contrary,  right  group  sugges- 
tion reinforces,  stimulates,  does  not  stultify  such  in- 
dividual action.  If  the  prayerful  attitude  of  my 
fellow  worshippers  helps  me  to  pray  better,  surely 
it  is  a  very  mean  kind  of  conceit  on  my  part  which 
would  prompt  me  to  despise  their  help,  and  refuse 
to  acknowledge  Creative  Spirit  acting  on  me 
through  other  men?  It  is  one  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful features  of  a  real  and  living  corporate  religion, 
that  within  it  ordinary  people  at  all  levels  help 
each  other  to  be  a  little  more  supernatural  than 
each  would  have  been  alone.  I  do  not  now  speak 
of  individuals  possessing  special  zeal  and  special 
aptitude;  though,  as  the  lives  of  the  Saints  assure 
us,  even  the  best  of  these  fluctuate,  and  need  social 

^  C£.  Trotter:  "Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  Peace  and  War." 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  169 

support  at  times.  Anyhow  such  persons  of  special 
spiritual  aptitude,  as  life  is  now,  are  as  rare  as  per- 
sons of  special  aptitude  in  other  walks  of  life.  But 
that  which  we  seek  for  the  life  of  to-day  and  of  the 
future,  is  such  a  planning  of  it  as  shall  give  all  men 
their  spiritual  chance.  And  it  is  abundantly  clear 
upon  all  levels  of  life,  that  men  are  chiefly  formed 
and  changed  by  the  power  of  suggestion,  sympathy 
and  imitation;  and  only  reach  full  development 
when  assembled  in  groups,  giving  full  opportunity 
for  the  benevolent  action  of  these  forces.  So  too 
in  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  incorporation  plays  a  part 
which  nothing  can  replace.  Goodness  and  devotion 
are  more  easily  caught  than  taught;  by  association  in 
groups,  holy  and  strong  souls — both  living  and  dead 
— make  their  full  gift  to  society,  weak,  undeveloped, 
and  arrogant  souls  receive  that  of  which  they  are  in 
need.  On  this  point  we  may  agree  with  a  great 
ecclesiastical  scholar  of  our  own  day  that  "the  more 
the  educated  and  intellectual  partake  with  sympathy 
of  heart  in  the  ordinary  devotions  and  pious  prac- 
tices of  the  poor,  the  higher  will  they  rise  in  the 
religion  of  the  Spirit."  ^ 

Yet  this  family  life  of  the  ideal  religious  institu- 
tion, with  its  reasonable  and  bracing  discipline,  its 
gift  of  shelter,  its  care  for  tradition,  its  habit-for- 
mation and  group  consciousness — all  this  is  given,  as 
we  may  as  well  acknowledge,  at  the  price  which  is 
exacted  by  all  family  life;  namely,  mutual  accommo- 

1  Dora  Cuthbert  Butler  in  the  "Hibbert  Journal,"  1906,  p.   502. 


170  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

dation  and  sacrifice,  place  made  for  the  childish,  the 
dull,  the  slow,  and  the  aged,  a  toning-down  of  the 
somewhat  imperious  demands  of  the  entirely  effi- 
cient and  clear-minded,  a  tolerance  of  imperfection. 
Thus  for  these  efficient  and  clear-minded  members 
there  is  always,  in  the  church  as  in  the  family,  a 
perpetual  opportunity  of  humility,  self-effacement, 
gentle  acceptance;  of  exerting  that  love  which  must 
be  joined  to  power  and  a  sound  mind  if  the  full  life 
of  the  Spirit  is  to  be  lived.  In  the  realm  of  the 
supernatural  this  is  a  solid  gain;  though  not  a  gain 
which  we  are  very  quick  to  appreciate  in  our  vigor- 
ous youth.  Did  we  look  upon  the  religious  institu- 
tion not  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  simply  as  fulfilling 
the  function  of  a  home — giving  shelter  and  nurture, 
opportunity  of  loyalty  and  mutual  service  on  one 
hand,  conserving  stability  and  good  custom  on  the 
other — then,  we  should  better  appreciate  its  gifts  to 
us,  and  be  more  merciful  to  its  necessary  defects. 
We  should  be  tolerant  to  its  inevitable  conservatism, 
its  tendency  to  encourage  dependence  and  obe- 
dience and  to  distrust  individual  initiative.  We 
should  no  longer  expect  it  to  provide  or  specially 
to  approve  novelty  and  freedom,  to  be  in  the  van  of 
life's  forward  thrust.  For  this  we  must  go  not  to 
the  Institution,  which  Is  the  vehicle  of  history;  but 
to  the  adventurous,  forward  moving  soul  which  Is 
the  vehicle  of  progress — to  the  prophet,  not  to  the 
priest.  These  two  great  figures,  the  Keeper  and  the 
Revealer,  which  are  prominent  In  every  historical  re- 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  171 

liglon,  represent  the  two  halves  of  the  fully-lived 
spiritual  life.  The  progress  of  man  depends  both 
on  conserving  and  on  exploring:  and  any  full  incor- 
poration of  that  life  which  will  serve  man's  spiritual 
interests  now,  must  find  place  for  both. 

Such  an  application  of  the  institutional  idea  to 
present  needs  is  required,  in  fact,  to  fulfil  at  least 
four  primary  conditions : — 

( 1 )  It  must  give  a  social  life  that  shall  develop 
group  consciousness  in  respect  of  our  eternal  inter- 
ests and  responsibilities:  using  for  this  real  disci- 
pline, and  the  influences  of  liturgy  and  creed. 

(2)  Yet  it  must  not  so  standardize  and  socialize 
this  life  as  to  leave  no  room  for  personal  freedom 
in  the  realm  of  Spirit:  for  those  "experiences  of  men 
in  their  solitude"  which  form  the  very  heart  of 
religion. 

(3)  It  must  not  be  so  ring-fenced,  so  exclusive, 
so  wholly  conditioned  by  the  past,  that  the  voice  of 
the  future,  that  is  of  the  prophet  giving  fresh  ex- 
pression to  eternal  truths,  cannot  clearly  be  heard 
in  it;  not  only  from  within  its  own  borders  but  also 
from  outside.     But 

(4)  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  not  be  so  con- 
temptuous of  the  past  and  its  priceless  symbols  that 
it  breaks  with  tradition,  and  so  loses  that  very  ele- 
ment of  stability  which  it  is  its  special  province  to 
preserve. 

I  go  on  now  to  the  second  aspect  of  institutional 
religion:  Cultus. 


172  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

We  at  once  make  the  transition  from  Church  to 
Cultus,  when  wc  ask  ourselves :  how  does,  how  can, 
the  Church  as  an  organized  and  enduring  society 
do  Its  special  work  of  creating  an  atmosphere  and 
Imparting  a  secret?  How  Is  the  traditional  deposit 
of  spiritual  experience  handed  on,  the  Individual 
drawn  Into  the  stream  of  spiritual  history  and  held 
there?  Remember,  the  Church  exists  to  foster  and 
hand  on,  not  merely  the  moral  life,  the  life  of  thls- 
world  perfection;  but  the  spiritual  life  In  all  Its 
mystery  and  splendour — the  life  of  more  than  this- 
world  perfection,  the  poetry  of  goodness,  the  life 
that  aims  at  God.  And  this,  not  only  In  elect  souls, 
which  might  conceivably  make  and  keep  direct  con- 
tacts without  her  help,  but  In  greater  or  less  degree 
in  the  mass  of  men,  who  do  need  help.  How  is  this 
done?  The  answer  can  only  be,  that  it  is  mostly 
done  through  symbolic  acts,  and  by  means  of  sug- 
gestion and  imitation. 

All  organized  churches  find  themselves  committed 
sooner  or  later  to  an  organized  cultus.  It  may  be 
rudimentary.  It  may  reach  a  high  pitch  of  aesthetic 
and  symbolic  perfection.  But  even  the  successive 
rebels  against  dead  ceremony  are  found  as  a  rule 
to  invent  some  ceremony  in  their  turn.  They  learn 
by  experience  the  truth  that  men  most  easily  form 
religious  habits  and  tend  to  have  religious  ex- 
periences when  they  are  assembled  In  groups  and 
caused  to  perform  the  same  acts.  This  is  so  be- 
cause as  we  have  already  seen,  the  human  psyche  is 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  173 

plastic  to  the  suggestions  made  to  It;  and  this  sugges- 
tibility is  greatly  Increased  when  It  Is  living  a  gregari- 
ous life  as  a  member  of  a  united  congregation  or 
flock,  and  Is  engaged  In  performing  corporate  acts. 
The  soldiers'  drill  is  essential  to  the  solidarity  of  the 
army,  and  the  religious  service  In  some  form  Is — 
apart  from  all  other  considerations — essential  to  the 
solidarity  of  the  Church. 

We  need  not  be  afraid  to  acknowledge  that  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  psychologist  one  prime 
reason  of  the  value  and  need  of  religious  ceremonies 
abides  in  this  corporate  suggestibility  of  man:  or 
that  one  of  their  chief  works  is  the  production  in 
him  of  mobility  of  the  threshold,  and  hence  of 
spiritual  awareness  of  a  generalized  kind.  As  the 
modern  mother  whispers  beneficent  suggestions  Into 
the  ear  of  her  sleeping  child  ^  so  the  Church  takes 
her  children  at  their  moment  of  least  resistance,  and 
suggests  to  them  all  that  she  desires  them  to  be. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  how  perfectly  adapted  the 
rituals  of  historic  Christianity  are  to  this  end,  of 
provoking  the  emergence  of  the  intuitive  mind  and 
securing  a  state  of  maximum  suggestibility.  The 
more  complex  and  solemn  the  ritual,  the  more 
archaic  and  universal  the  symbols  it  employs,  so 
much  the  more  powerful — for  those  natures  able  to 
yield  to  it — the  suggestion  becomes.  Music, 
rhythmic  chanting,  symbolic  gesture,  the  solemn 
periods  of  recited  prayer,   are  all  contributory  to 

ifiaudouin:  "Suggestion  and  Auto-Suggestion,"  Cap.  VII. 


174  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

this  effect.  In  churches  of  the  Catholic  type  every 
object  that  meets  the  eye,  every  scent,  every  attitude 
that  we  are  encouraged  to  assume,  gives  us  a  push 
in  the  same  direction  if  we  let  it  do  its  rightful  work. 
For  other  temperaments  the  collective,  deliberate, 
and  really  ceremonial  silence  of  the  Quakers — the 
hush  of  the  waiting  mind,  the  unforced  attitude  of 
expectation,  the  abstraction  from  visual  image — 
works  to  the  same  end.  In  either  case,  the  aim  is  the 
production  of  a  special  group-consciousness;  the 
reinforcing  of  languid  or  undeveloped  individual 
feeling  and  aptitude  by  the  suggestion  of  the  crowd. 
This,  and  Its  result,  is  seen  of  course  in  its  crudest 
form  in  revivalism:  and  on  higher  levels,  in  such 
elaborate  dramatic  ceremonies  as  those  which  are  a 
feature  of  the  Catholic  celebrations  of  Holy  Week. 
But  the  nice  warm  devotional  feeling  with  which 
what  Is  called  a  good  congregation  finishes  the  sing- 
ing of  a  favourite  hymn  belongs  to  the  same  order 
of  phenomena.  The  rhythmic  phrases — not  as  a 
rule  very  full  of  meaning  or  Intellectual  appeal — 
exercise  a  slightly  hypnotic  effect  on  the  analyzing 
surface-mind;  and  induce  a  condition  of  suggesti- 
bility open  to  all  the  influences  of  the  place  and  of 
our  fellow  worshippers.  The  authorized  transla- 
tion of  Ephesians  v.  19:  "speaking  to  yourselves 
in  psalms  and  hymns  and  spiritual  songs,"  whatever 
we  may  think  of  Its  accuracy,  does  as  it  stands  de- 
scribe one  of  the  chief  functions  of  religious  services 
of  the  "hearty  congregational"  sort.     We  do  speak 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  175 

to  ourselves — our  deeper,  and  more  plastic  selves 
— in  our  psalms  and  hymns;  so  too  in  the  common 
recitation,  especially  the  chanting,  of  a  creed.  We 
administer  through  these  rhythmic  affirmations,  so 
long  as  we  sing  them  with  intention,  a  powerful 
suggestion  to  ourselves  and  every  one  else  within 
reach.  We  gather  up  in  them — or  should  do — the 
whole  tendency  of  our  worship  and  aspiration,  and 
in  the  very  form  in  which  it  can  most  easily  sink  in. 
This  lays  a  considerable  responsibility  on  those  who 
choose  psalms  and  hymns  for  congregational  sing- 
ing; for  these  can  as  easily  be  the  instruments  of 
fanatical  melancholy  and  devitalizing,  as  of  chari- 
table life-giving  and  constructive  ideas. 

In  saying  all  this  I  do  not  seek  to  discredit  reli- 
gious' ceremony;  either  of  the  naive  or  of  the  so- 
phisticated type.  On  the  contrary,  I  think  that  in 
effecting  this  change  in  our  mental  tone  and  colour, 
in  prompting  this  emergence  of  a  mood  which,  in 
the  mass  of  men,  is  commonly  suppressed,  these  cer- 
emonies do  their  true  work.  They  should  stimulate 
and  give  social  expression  to  that  mood  of  adora- 
tion which  is  the  very  heart  of  religion;  helping 
those  who  cannot  be  devotional  alone  to  partici- 
pate in  the  common  devotional  feeling.  If,  then, 
we  desire  to  receive  the  gifts  which  corporate  wor- 
ship can  most  certainly  make  to  us,  we  ought  to 
yield  ourselves  without  resistance  or  criticism  to  its 
influence;  as  we  yield  ourselves  to  the  influence  of  a 
great  work  of  art.     That  influence  is  able  to  tune 


176  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

us  up,  at  least  to  a  fleeting  awareness  of  spiritual 
reality;  and  each  such  emergence  of  transcendental 
feeling  is  to  the  good.  It  is  true  that  the  objects 
which  immediately  evoke  this  feeling  will  only  be 
symbolic;  but  after  all,  our  very  best  conceptions 
of  God  are  bound  to  be  that.  We  do  not,  or 
should  not,  demand  scientific  truth  of  them.  Their 
business  is  rather  to  give  us  poetry,  a  concrete  artis- 
tic intuition  of  reality,  and  to  place  us  in  the  mood  of 
poetry.  The  great  thing  is,  that  by  these  corporate 
liturgic  practices  and  surrenders,  we  can  preven*-  that 
terrible  freezing  up  of  the  deep  wells  of  our  being 
v.hich  so  easily  comes  to  those  who  must  lead  an 
exacting  material  or  intellectual  life.  We  keep  our- 
selves supple ;  the  spiritual  faculties  are  within 
reach,  and  susceptible  to  education. 

Organized  ceremonial  religion  insists  upon  it,  that 
at  least  for  a  certain  time  each  day  or  week  we 
shall  attend  to  the  things  of  the  Spirit.  It  offers  us 
its  suggestions,  and  shuts  off  as  well  as  it  can  con- 
flicting suggestions:  though,  human  as  we  are,  the 
mere  appearance  of  our  neighbours  is  often  enough 
to  bring  these  in.  Nothing  is  more  certain  than 
this:  first  that  we  shall  never  know  the  spiritual 
world  unless  we  give  ourselves  the  chance  of  at- 
tending to  it,  clear  a  space  for  it  in  our  busy  lives; 
and  next,  that  it  will  not  produce  its  real  effect  in 
us,  unless  it  penetrates  below  the  conscious  surface 
into  the  deeps  of  the  instinctive  mind,  and  moulds 
this  in   accordance  with  the   regnant   idea.     If  we 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  177 

are  to  receive  the  gifts  of  the  cultus,  we  on  our  part 
must  bring  to  it  at  the  very  least  what  we  bring  to 
all  great  works  of  art  that  speak  to  us:  that  is  to 
say,  attention,  surrender,  sympathetic  emotion. 
Otherwise,  like  all  other  works  of  art,  it  will  re- 
main external  to  us.  Much  of  the  perfectly  sincere 
denunciation  and  dislike  of  religious  ceremony  which 
now  finds  frequent  utterance  comes  from  those 
who  have  failed  thus  to  do  their  share.  They 
are  like  the  hasty  critics  who  dismiss  some  great 
work  of  art  because  it  is  not  representative, 
or  historically  accurate;  and  so  entirely  miss 
the  aesthetic  values  which  it  was  created  to  im- 
part. 

Consider  a  picture  of  the  Madonna.  Minds  at 
different  levels  may  find  in  this  pure  representation, 
Bible  history,  theology,  aesthetic  satisfaction,  spirit- 
ual truth.  The  peasant  may  see  in  it  the  portrait 
of  the  Mother  of  God,  the  critic  a  phase  in  artistic 
evolution;  whilst  the  mystic  may  pass  through  it  to 
new  contacts  with  the  Spirit  of  life.  We  shall  re- 
ceive according  to  the  measure  of  what  we  bring. 
Now  consider  the  parallel  case  of  some  great  dra- 
matic liturgy,  rich  with  the  meanings  which  history 
has  poured  into  it.  Take,  as  an  example  which 
every  one  can  examine  for  themselves,  the  Roman 
Mass.  Different  levels  of  mind  will  find  here  magic, 
theology,  deep  mystery,  the  commemoration  under 
archaic  symbols  of  an  event.  But  above  and  beyond 
all   these,   they  can  find  the   solemn  incorporated 


178  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

emotion  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  a  liturgic  re- 
capitulation of  the  movement  of  the  human  soul 
towards  fullness  of  life:  through  confession  and  rec- 
onciliation to  adoration  and  intercession — that  is, 
to  charity — and  thence  to  direct  communion  with 
and  feeding  on  the  Divine  World. 

To  the  mind  which  refuses  to  yield  to  it,  to  move 
with  its  movement,  but  remains  in  critical  isola- 
tion, the  Mass  like  all  other  ceremonies  will  seem 
external,  dead,  unreal;  lacking  in  religious  content. 
But  if  we  do  give  ourselves  completely  and  un- 
selfconsciously to  the  movement  of  such  a  ceremony, 
at  the  end  of  it  we  may  not  have  learnt  anything, 
but  we  have  lived  something.  And  when  we  re- 
member that  no  experience  of  our  devotional  life  is 
lost,  surely  we  may  regard  it  as  worth  while  to  sub- 
mit ourselves  to  an  experience  by  which,  if  only 
for  a  few  minutes,  we  are  thus  lifted  to  richer 
levels  of  life  and  brought  into  touch  with  higher 
values?  We  have  indeed  only  to  observe  the  en- 
richment of  life  so  often  produced  in  those  who 
thus  dwell  meekly  and  without  inner  conflict  in  the 
symbolic  world  of  ceremonial  religion,  and  accept 
its  discipline  and  its  gifts,  to  be  led  at  least  to  a 
humble  suspension  of  judgment  as  to  its  value.  A 
whole  world  of  spiritual  experience  separates  the 
humble  little  church  mouse  rising  at  six  every  morn- 
ing to  attend  a  service  which  she  believes  to  be 
pleasing  to  a  personal  God,  from  the  philosopher 
who   meditates  on   the  Absolute   in   a  comfortable 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  179 

armchair;  and  no  one  will  feel  much  doubt  as  to 
which  side  the  advantage  lies. 

Here  we  approach  the  next  point.  The  cultus, 
with  its  liturgy  and  its  discipline,  exists  for  and 
promotes  the  repetition  of  acts  which  are  primarily 
the  expression  of  man's  Instinct  for  God;  and  by 
these — or  any  other  repeated  acts — our  ductile  In- 
stinctive life  is  given  a  definite  trend.  We  know 
from  Semon's  researches  ^  that  the  performance  of 
any  given  act  by  a  living  creature  influences  all 
future  performances  of  similar  acts.  That  Is  to 
say,  memory  combines  with  each  fresh  stimulus  to 
control  pur  reaction  to  It.  "In  the  case  of  living 
organisms,"  says  Bertrand  Russell,  "practically 
everything  that  Is  distinctive  both  of  their  physi- 
cal and  mental  behaviour  is  bound  up  with  this  per- 
sistent influence  of  the  past" :  and  most  actions  and 
responses  "can  only  be  brought  under  causal  laws 
by  Including  past  occurrences  in  the  history  of  the 
organism  as  part  of  the  causes  of  the  present  re- 
sponse." 2  The  phenomena  of  apperception.  In 
fact,  form  only  one  aspect  of  a  general  law.  As 
that  which  we  have  perceived  conditions  what  we 
can  now  perceive,  so  that  which  we  have  done  con- 
ditions what  we  shall  do.  It  therefore  appears 
that  in  spite  of  angry  youthful  revolts  or  mature 
sophistications,  early  religious  training,  and  espe- 
cially repeated  religious  acts,  are  likely  to  influence 

iCf.  R.   Semon:  "Die   Mneme." 

2  Bertrand  Russell:     "The  Analysis  of  Mind,"  p.  78. 


180  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

the  whole  of  our  future  lives.  Though  all  they 
meant  to  us  seems  dead  or  unreal,  they  have  re- 
treated to  the  dark  background  of  consciousness  and 
there  live  on.  The  tendency  which  they  have  given 
persists;  we  never  get  away  from  them.  A  church 
may  often  seem  to  lose  her  children,  as  human 
parents  do;  but  in  spite  of  themselves  they  retain 
her  invisible  seal,  and  are  her  children  still.  In 
nearly  all  conversions  in  middle  life,  or  dramatic 
returns  from  scepticism  to  traditional  belief,  a  large, 
part  is  undoubtedly  played  by  forgotten  childish 
memories  and  early  religious  discipline,  surging  up 
and  contributing  their  part  to  the  self's  new  ap- 
prehensions of  Reality. 

If,  then,  the  cultus  did  nothing  else,  it  would 
do  these  two  highly  important  things.  It  would 
influence  our  whole  present  attitude  by  its  sugges- 
tions, and  our  whole  future  attitude  through  un- 
conscious memory  of  the  acts  which  it  demands. 
But  it  does  more  than  this.  It  has  as  perhaps  its 
greatest  function  the  providing  of  a  concrete  artis- 
tic expression  for  bur  spiritual  perceptions,  adora- 
tions and  desires.  It  links  the  visible  with  the  in- 
visible, by  translating  transcendent  fact  into  sym- 
bolic and  even  sensuous  terms.  And  for  this  reason 
men,  having  bodies  no  less  surely  than  spirits,  can 
never  afford  wholly  to  dispense  with  it.  Hasty 
transcendentalists  often  forget  this;  and  set  us  spir- 
itual standards  to  which  the  race,  so  long  as  it  is 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  181 

anchored  to  this  planet  and  to  the  physical  order, 
cannot  conform. 

A  convert  from  agnosticism  with  whom  I  was 
acquainted,  was  once  receiving  reHgious  instruction 
from  a  devout  and  simple-minded  nun.  They  were 
discussing  the  story  of  the  Annunciation,  which  pre- 
sented some  difficulties  to  her.  At  last  she  said  to 
the  nun,  "Well,  anyhow,  I  suppose  that  one  is  not 
obliged  to  believe  that  the  Blessed  Virgin  was  vis- 
ited by  a  solid  angel,  dressed  in  a  white  robe?"  To 
this  the  nun  replied  doubtfully,  "No,  dear,  per- 
haps not.  But  still,  you  know,  he  would  have  to 
wear  something." 

Now  here,  as  it  seems  to  me,  we  have  a  great 
theological  truth  in  a  few  words.  The  elusive  con- 
tacts and  subtle  realities  of  the  world  of  spirit  have 
got  to  wear  something,  if  we  are  to  grasp  them  at 
all.  Moreover,  if  the  mass  of  men  are  to  grasp 
them  ever  so  little,  they  must  wear  something  which 
is  easily  recognized  by  the  human  eye  and  human 
heart;  more,  by  the  primitive,  half-conscious  folk- 
soul  existing  In  each  one  of  us,  stirring  In  the  depths 
and  reaching  out  In  Its  own  way  towards  God.  It 
is  a  delicate  matter  to  discuss  religious  symbols. 
They  are  like  our  Intimate  friends:  though  at  the 
bottom  of  our  hearts  we  may  know  that  they  are 
only  human,  we  hate  other  people  to  tell  us  so. 
And,  even  as  the  love  of  human  beings  In  Its  most 
perfect  state  passes  beyond  its  immediate  object,  is 


182  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

transfigured,  and  merged  in  the  nature  of  all  love; 
so  too,  the  devotion  which  a  purely  symbolic  figure 
calls  forth  from  the  ardently  religious  nature — 
whether  this  figure  be  the  divine  Krishna  of  Hin- 
duism, the  Buddhist's  Mother  of  Mercy,  the  Sufi's 
Beloved,  or  those  objects  of  traditional  Christian 
piety  which  are  familiar  to  all  of  us — this  devo- 
tion too  passes  beyond  its  Immediate  goal  and  the 
relative  truth  there  embodied,  and  is  eternalized. 
It  is  characteristic  of  the  primitive  mind  that  it 
finds  a  difficulty  about  universals,  and  is  most  at 
home  with  particulars.  The  success  of  Christianity 
as  a  world-religion  largely  abides  in  the  way  in 
which  It  meets  this  need.  It  is  notorious  that  the 
person  of  Jesus,  rather  than  the  Absolute  God,  is 
the  object  of  average  Protestant  devotion.  So  too 
the  Catholic  peasant  may  find  it  easier  to  approach 
God  through  and  In  his  special  saint,  or  even  a 
special  local  form  of  the  Madonna.  This  is  the  In- 
evitable corollary  of  the  psychic  level  at  which  he 
lives;  and  to  speak  contemptuously  of  his  "supersti- 
tion" is  wholly  beside  the  point.  Other  great 
faiths  have  been  compelled  by  experience  to  meet 
this  same  need  of  a  particular  object  on  which  the 
primitive  religious  consciousness  can  fasten  itself; 
conspicuous  examples  being  the  development  within 
Buddhism  of  the  cult  of  the  Great  Mother,  and 
within  pure  Brahminism  of  Krishna  worship. 
Wherever  it  may  be  destined  to  end,  here  it  is  that 
the  life  of  the  Spirit  begins;  emerging  very  gently 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  183 

from  our  simplest  human  impulses  and  needs.  Yet, 
since  the  Universal,  the  Idea,  is  manifested  in  each 
such  particular,  we  need  not  refuse  to  allow  that 
the  mass  of  men  do  thus  enjoy — in  a  way  that  their 
psychic  level  makes  natural  to  them — their  own 
measure  of  communion  with  the  Creative  Spirit  of 
God;  and  already  live  according  to  their  measure  a 
spiritual  life. 

These  objects  of  religious  cultus,  then,  and  the 
whole  symbolic  faith-world  which  is  built  up  of 
them,  with  its  angels  and  demons,  its  sharply  de- 
fined heaven  and  hell,  the  Divine  personifications 
which  embody  certain  attributes  of  God  for  us,  the 
purity  and  gentleness  of  the  Mother,  the  simplicity 
and  infinite  possibility  of  the  Child,  the  divine  self- 
giving  of  the  Cross; — more,  the  Lamb,  the  Blood 
and  the  Fire  of  the  revivalists,  the  oil  and  water, 
bread  and  wine,  of  a  finished  Sacramentalism — all 
these  may  be  regarded  as  the  vestures  placed  by 
man,  at  one  stage  or  another  of  his  progress,  on 
the  freely-given  but  ineffable  spiritual  fact.  Like 
other  clothes,  they  have  now  become  closely  identi- 
fied with  that  which  wears  them.  And  we  strip 
them  off  at  our  own  peril :  for  this  proceeding,  grate- 
ful as  it  may  be  to  our  intellects,  may  leave  us  face 
to  face  with  a  mystery  which  we  dare  not  look  at, 
and  cannot  grasp. 

So,  cultus  has  done  a  mighty  thing  for  humanity, 
in  evolving  and  conserving  the  system  of  symbols 
through  which  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  can  be  in 


184  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

some  measure  expressed.  The  history  of  these 
symbols  goes  back,  as  we  now  know,  to  the  infancy 
of  the  race,  and  forward  to  the  last  productions  of 
the  religious  imagination;  all  of  which  bear  the 
Image  of  our  past.  They  are  like  coins,  varying 
in  beauty,  and  often  of  slight  Intrinsic  value;  but 
of  enormous  importance  for  our  spiritual  currency, 
because  accepted  as  the  representatives  of  a  real 
wealth.  In  Its  symbols,  the  cultus  preserves  all  the 
past  levels  of  religious  response  achieved  by  the 
race;  weaving  them  Into  the  fabric  of  religion,  and 
carrying  them  forward  into  the  present.  All  the 
Instinctive  movements  of  the  primitive  mind;  its 
fear  of  the  Invisible,  Its  self-subjection,  its  trust  in 
ritual  acts,  amulets,  spells,  sacrifices.  Its  tendency 
to  localize  Deity  In  certain  places  or  shrines,  to  buy 
off  the  unknown,  to  set  up  magicians  and  mediators, 
are  represented  in  It.  Its  function  is  racial  more 
than  individual.  It  is  the  art-work  of  the  folk- 
soul  in  the  religious  sphere.  Here  man's  Inveterate 
creative  faculty  seizes  on  the  raw  material  given 
him  by  religious  intuition,  and  constructs  from  It 
significant  shapes.  We  misunderstand,  then,  tTie 
whole  character  of  religious  symbolism  if  we  either 
demand  rationality  from  it,  or  try  to  adapt  its  Im- 
agery to  the  lucid  and  probably  mistaken  conclusions 
of  the  sophisticated  modern  mind. 

We  are  learning  to  recognize  these  primitive  and 
racial  elements  in  popular  religion,  and  to  endure 
their  presence  with  tolerance;  because  they  are  nee- 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  185 

essary,  and  match  a  level  of  mental  life  which 
is  still  active  in  the  race.  This  more  primitive  life 
emerges  to  dominate  all  crowds — where  the  col- 
lective mental  level  is  inevitably  lower  than  that  of 
the  best  individuals  immersed  in  it — and  still  con- 
ditions many  of  our  beliefs  and  deeds.  There  is 
the  propitiatory  attitude  to  unseen  Divine  powers; 
which  the  primitive  mind,  in  defiance  of  theology, 
insists  on  regarding  as  somehow  hostile  to  us  and 
wanting  to  be  bought  off.  There  is  the  whole  idea 
and  apparatus  of  sacrifice;  even  though  no  more 
than  the  big  apples  and  vegetable  marrows  of  the 
harvest  festival  be  involved  in  it.  There  is  the 
continued  belief  in  a  Deity  who  can  and  should  be 
persuaded  to  change  the  weather,  or  who  punishes 
those  who  offend  Him  by  famine,  earthquake  and 
pestilence.  Vestigial  relics  of  all  these  phases  can 
still  be  discovered  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 
There  is  further  the  undying  vogue  of  the  religious 
amulet.  There  is  the  purely  magical  efficacy  which 
some  churches  attribute  to  their  sacraments,  rites, 
shrines,  liturgic  formulae  and  religious  objects; 
others,  to  the  texts  of  their  scriptures.^  These 
things,  and  others  like  them,  are  not  only  significant 
survivals  from  the  past.  They  also  represent  the 
religious  side  of  something  that  continues  active  in 
us  at  present.     Since,  then,  it  should  clearly  be  the 

^  A  quaint  example  of  this  occurred  in  a  recent  revival,  where 
the  exclamation  "We  believe  in  the  Word  of  God  from  cover  to 
cover,  Alleluia !"  received  the  fervent  reply,  "And  the  covers 
too!" 


186  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

object  of  all  spiritual  endeavour  to  win  the  whole 
man  and  not  only  his  reason  for  God,  speaking  to 
his  instincts  in  language  that  they  understand,  we 
should  not  too  hurriedly  despise  or  denounce  these 
things.  Far  better  that  our  primitive  emotion's, 
with  their  vast  store  of  potential  energy,  should 
be  won  for  spiritual  interests  on  the  only  terms 
which  they  can  grasp,  than  that  they  should  be  left 
to  spend  themselves  on  lower  objects. 

If  therefore  the  spiritual  or  the  regenerate  life 
is  not  likely  to  prosper  without  some  incorporation 
in  institutions,  some  definite  link  with  the  past, 
it  seems  also  likely  to  need  for  its  full  working-out 
and  propaganda  the  symbols  and  liturgy  of  a  cultus. 
Here  again,  the  right  path  will  be  that  of  fulfilment, 
not  of  destruction;  a  deeper  investigation  of  the 
full  meaning  of  cultus,  the  values  it  conserves  and 
the  needs  it  must  meet,  a  clearer  and  humbler  un- 
derstanding of  our  human  limitations.  We  must 
also  clearly  realize  as  makers  of  the  future,  that 
as  the  Church  has  its  special  dangers  of  conserva- 
tism, cosiness,  intolerance,  a  checking  of  initiative, 
the  domestic  tendency  to  enclose  itself  and  shirk 
reality;  so  the  cultus  has  also  its  special  dangers, 
of  which  the  chief  are  perhaps  formalism,  magic, 
and  spiritual  sloth.  Receiving  and  conserving  as  It 
does  all  the  successive  deposits  of  racial  experience, 
it  is  the  very  home  of  magic:  of  the  archaic  ten- 
dency to  attribute  absolute  value  to  prescribed 
words  and  deeds,  special  power  to  a  priestly  caste, 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  187 

and  to  make  of  itself  the  essential  mediator  between 
Creative  Spirit  and  the  soul.  Further,  using  per- 
petually as  it  does  and  must  symbols  of  the  most 
archaic  sort,  directly  appealing  to  the  latent  prim- 
itive in  each  of  us,  it  offers  us  a  perpetual  temptation 
to  fall  back  into  something  below  our  best  possible. 
The  impulsive  mind  is  inevitably  conservative;  al- 
ways at  the  mercy  of  memorized  images.  Hence 
its  delighted  self-yielding  to  traditional  symbols,  its 
uncritical  emotionalism,  its  easy  slip-back  into  tra- 
ditional and  even  archaic  and  self-contradictory  be- 
liefs: the  way  in  which  it  pops  out  and  enjoys  it- 
self at  a  service  of  the  hearty  congregational  sort, 
or  may  even  lead  its  unresisting  owner  to  the  re- 
vivalists' penitent-bench. 

But  on  the  other  hand.  Creative  Spirit  is  not 
merely  conservative.  The  Lord  and  Giver  of  Life 
presses  forward,  and  perpetually  brings  novelty  to 
birth;  and  in  so  far  as  we  are  dedicated  to  Him,  we 
must  not  make  an  unconditional  surrender  to  psychic 
indolence,  or  to  the  pull-back  of  the  religious  past. 
We  may  not,  as  Christians,  accept  easy  emotions  in 
the  place  of  heroic  and  difficult  actualizations:  make 
external  religion  an  excuse  for  dodging  reality,  im- 
merse ourselves  in  an  exquisite  dream,  or  tolerate 
any  real  conflict  between  old  cultus  and  actual  living 
faith.  A  most  delicate  discrimination  is  therefore 
demanded  from  us;  the  striking  of  a  balance  be- 
tween the  rightful  conservatism  of  the  cultus  and 
the  rightful  independence  of  the  soul.     Yet,  this  is 


188  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

not  to  justify  even  in  the  most  advanced  a  whole- 
sale iconoclasm.  Time  after  time,  experience  has 
proved  that  the  attempt  to  approach  God  "with- 
out means,"  though  it  may  seem  to  describe  the  rare 
and  sacred  moments  of  the  personal  life  of  the 
Spirit,  is  beyond  the  power  of  the  mass  of  men;  and 
even  those  who  do  achieve  it  are,  as  it  were,  most 
often  supported  from  behind  by  religious  histpry 
and  the  religious  culture  of  their  day.  I  do  not 
think  it  can  be  doubted  that  the  right  use  of  cultus 
does  increase  religious  sensitiveness.  Therefore 
here  the  difficult  task  of  the  future  must  be  to  pre- 
serve and  carry  forward  its  essential  elements,  all 
the  sym.bolic  significance,  all  the  incorporated  emo- 
tion, which  make  it  one  of  man's  greatest  works 
of  art;  whilst  eliminating  those  features  which  are, 
in  the  bad  sense,  conventional  and  no  longer  answer 
to  experience  or  communicate  life. 

Were  we  truly  reasonable  human  beings,  we 
should  perhaps  provide  openly  and  as  a  matter  of 
course  within  the  Christian  frame  widely  different 
types  of  ceremonial  religion,  suited  to  different 
levels  of  mind  and  different  developments  of  the 
religious  consciousness.  To  some  extent  this  Is  al- 
ready done:  traditionalism  and  liberalism,  sacra- 
mentallsm,,  revivalism,  quietism,  have  each  their; 
existing  cults.  But  these  varying  types  of  church 
now  appear  as  competitors,  too  often  hostile;  and 
not  as  the  complementary  and  graded  expressions 
of  one  life,  each  having  truth  in  the  relative  though 


INSTITUTIONAL  RELIGION  189 

none  in  the  absolute  sense.  Did  we  more  openly 
acknowledge  the  character  of  that  life,  the  historic 
Churches  would  no  longer  invite  the  sophisticated 
to  play  down  to  their  own  primitive  fantasies;  to 
sing  meaningless  hymns  and  recite  vindictive  psalms, 
or  lull  themselves  by  the  recitation  of  litany  or 
rosary  which,  admirable  as  the  instruments  of  sug- 
gestion, are  inadequate  expressions  of  the  awakened 
spiritual  life.  On  the  one  hand,  they  would  not  re- 
quire the  simple  to  express  their  corporate  religious 
feeling  In  Elizabethan  English  or  Patristic  Latin; 
on  the  other,  expect  the  educated  to  accept  at  face- 
value  symbols  of  which  the  unreal  character  is 
patent  to  them.  Nor  would  they  represent  these 
activities  as  possessing  absolute  value  in  themselves. 
To  join  In  simplicity  and  without  criticism  in  the 
common  worship,  humbly  receiving  its  good  in- 
fluences, is  one  thing.  This  Is  like  the  drill  of  the 
loyal  soldier;  welding  him  to  his  neighbours,  giving 
him  the  corporate  spirit  and  forming  In  him  the 
habits  he  needs.  But  to  stop  short  at  that  drill, 
and  tell  the  individual  that  drill  is  the  essence  of 
his  life  and  all  his  duty.  Is  another  thing  altogether. 
It  confuses  means  and  end;  destroys  the  balance 
between  liberty  and  law.  If  the  religious  institu- 
tion is  to  do  its  real  work  in  furthering  the  life  of 
the  Spirit,  it  must  introduce  a  more  rich  variety  Into 
Its  methods;  and  thus  educate  souls  of  every  type 
not  only  to  be  members  of  the  group  but  also  to 
grow  up  to  the  full  richness  of  the  personal  life. 


190  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

It  must  offer  them — as  indeed  Catholicism  does  to 
some  extent  already — both  easy  emotion  and  diffi- 
cult mystery;  both  dramatic  ceremony  and  ceremo- 
nial silence.  It  must  also  give  to  them  all  its  hoarded 
knowledge  of  the  inner  life  of  prayer  and  contem- 
plation, of  the  remaking  of  the  moral  nature  on 
supernatural  levels:  all  the  gold  that  there  is  in  the 
deposit  of  faith.  And  it  must  not  be  afraid  to  im- 
part that  knowledge  in  modern  terms  which  all  can 
understand.  All  this  it  can  and  will  do  if  its  mem- 
bers sufficiently  desire  it:  which  means,  if  those  who 
care  intensely  for  the  life  of  the  Spirit  accept  their 
corporate  responsibilities.  In  the  last  resort,  criti- 
cism of  the  Church,  of  Christian  institutionalism,  is 
really  criticism  of  ourselves.  Were  we  more  spir- 
itually alive,  our  spiritual  homes  would  be  the  real 
nesting  places  of  new  life.  That  which  the  Church 
is  to  us  is  the  result  of  all  that  we  bring  to,  and  ask 
from,  history:  the  impact  of  our  present  and  its 
past. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

In  the  last  three  chapters  we  have  been  concerned, 
almost  exclusively,  with  those  facts  of  psychic  life 
and  growth,  those  instruments  and  mechanizations, 
which  bear  upon  or  condition  our  spiritual  life. 
But  these  wanderings  in  the  soul's  workshops,  and 
these  analyses  of  the  forces  that  play  on  it,  give 
us  far  too  cold  or  too  technical  a  view  of  that  richly 
various  and  dynamic  thing,  the  real  regenerated 
life.  I  wish  now  to  come  out  of  the  workshop, 
and  try  to  see  this  spiritual  life  as  the  individual 
man  may  and  should  achieve  it,  from  another  angle 
of  approach. 

What  are  we  to  regard  as  the  heart  of  spiritual- 
ity? When  we  have  eliminated  the  accidental  char- 
acters with  which  varying  traditions  have  endowed 
it,  what  is  it  that  still  so  definitely  distinguishes  its 
possessor  from  the  best,  most  moral  citizen  or  de- 
voted altruist?  Why  do  the  Christian  saint,  Indian 
rishj,  Buddhist  arhat,  Moslem  sufi^  all  seem  to  us 
at  bottom  men  of  one  race,  living  under  different 
sanctions  one  life,  witnessing  to  one  fact?  This 
life,  which  they  show  in  its  various  perfections,  in- 
cludes  it   is   true   the   ethical   life,   but  cannot  be 

191 


192  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

equated  with  it.  Wherein  do  its  differentia  con- 
sist? We  are  dealing  with  the  most  subtle  of  reali- 
ties and  have  only  the  help  of  crude  words,  de- 
veloped for  other  purposes  than  this.  But  surely 
we  come  near  to  the  truth,  as  history  and  expe- 
rience show  it  to  us,  when  we  say  again  that  the 
spiritual  life  in  all  its  manifestations  from  smallest 
beginnings  to  unearthly  triumph  is  simply  the  life 
that  means  God  in  all  His  richness,  immanent  and 
transcendent:  the  whole  response  to  the  Eternal 
and  Abiding  of  which  any  one  man  is  capable,  ex- 
pressed in  and  through  his  this-world  life.  It  re- 
quires then  an  objective  vision  or  certitude,  some- 
thing to  aim  at;  and  also  a  total  integration  of  the 
self,  its  dedication  to  that  aim.  Both  terms,  vision 
and  response,  are  essential  to  it. 

This  definition  m.ay  seem  at  first  sight  rather  dull. 
It  suggests  little  of  that  poignant  and  unearthly 
beauty,  that  heroism,  that  immense  attraction,  which 
really  belong  to*  the  spiritual  life.  Here  indeed  we 
are  dealing  with  poetry  in  action:  and  we  need  not 
words  but  music  to  describe  it  as  it  really  is.  Yet 
all  the  forms,  all  the  various  beauties  and  achieve- 
ments of  this  life  of  the  Spirit,  can  be  resumed  as 
the  reactions  of  different  temperaments  to  the  one 
abiding  and  inexhaustibly  satisfying  Object  of  their 
love.  It  is  the  answer  made  by  the  whole  supple, 
plastic  self,  rational  and  instinctive,  active  and  con- 
templative, to  any  or  all  of  those  objective  experi- 
ences of  religion  which  we  considered  in  the  first 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       193 

chapter;  whether  of  an  encompassing  and  transcend- 
ent Reality,  of  a  Divine  Companionship  or  of  Imma- 
nent Spirit.  Such  a  response  we  must  beheve  to  be 
itself  divinely  actuated.  Fully  made,  it  is  found  on 
the  one  hand  to  call  forth  the  most  heroic,  most 
beautiful,  most  tender  qualities  in  human  nature;  all 
that  we  call  holiness,  the  transfiguration  of  mere 
ethics  by  a  supernatural  loveliness,  breathing  an- 
other air,  satisfying  another  standard,  than  those 
of  the  temporal  world.  And  on  the  other  hand, 
this  response  of  the  self  is  repaid  by  a  new  sensitive- 
ness and  receptivity,  a  new  influx  of  power.  To 
use  theological  language,  will  is  answered  by  grace: 
and  as  the  will's  dedication  rises  towards  complete- 
ness the  more  fully  does  new  life  flow  in.  There- 
fore it  is  plain  that  the  smallest  and  humblest  be- 
ginning of  such  a  life  In  ourselves — and  this  In- 
quiry is  Jjseless  unless  it  be  made  to  speak  to  our 
own  condition — will  entail  not  merely  an  addition 
to  life,  but  for  us  too  a  change  In  our  whole  scale  of 
values,  a  self-dedication.  Tor  that  which  we  are 
here  shown  as  a  possible  human  achievement  is  not 
a  life  of  comfortable  piety,  or  the  enjoyment  of  the 
delicious  sensations  of  the  armchair  mystic.  We 
are  offered,  it  Is  true,  a  new  dower  of  life;  access  to 
the  full  possibilities  of  human  nature.  But  only 
upon  terms,  and  these  terms  Include  new  obligations 
in  respect  of  that  life;  compelling  us,  as  it  appears, 
to  perpetual  hard  and  difiicult  choices,  a  perpetual 
refusal    to   sink  back   into    the   next-best,   to   slide 


194  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

along  a  gentle  incline.  The  spiritual  life  is  not 
lived  upon  the  heavenly  hearth-rug,  within  safe  dis- 
tance from  the  Fire  of  Love.  It  demands,  indeed, 
very  often  things  so  hard  that  seen  from  the  hearth- 
rug they  seem  to  us  superhuman :  immensely  gen- 
erous compassion,  forbearance,  forgiveness,  gentle- 
ness, radiant  purity,  self-forgetting  zeal.  It  means 
a  complete  conquest  of  life's  perennial  tendency  to 
lag  behind  the  best  possible;  willing  acceptance  of 
hardship  and  pain.  And  if  we  ask  how  this  can 
be,  what  it  is  that  makes  possible  such  enhance- 
ment of  human  will  and  of  human  courage,  the 
only  answer  seems  to  be  that  of  the  Johannine 
Christ:  that  it  does  consist  in  a  more  abundant  life. 
In  the  second  chapter  of  this 'book,  we  looked  at 
the  gradual  unfolding  of  that  life  in  its  great  his- 
torical representatives;  and  we  found  its  general 
line  of  development  to  lead  through  disillusion  with 
the  merely  physical  to  conversion  to  the  spiritual, 
and  thence  by  way  of  hard  moral  conflicts  and  their 
resolution  to  a  unification  of  character,  a  full  in- 
tegration of  the  active  and  contemplative  sides  of 
life;  resulting  in  fresh  power,  and  a  complete  dedi- 
cation to  work  within  the  new  order  and  for  the  new 
ideals.  There  was  something  of  the  penitent,  some- 
thing of  the  contemplative,  and  something  of  the 
apostle  in  every  man  or  woman  who  thus  grew  to 
their  full  stature  and  realized  all  their  latent  possi- 
bilities. But  above  all  there  was  a  fortitude,  an 
all-round  power  of  tackling  existence,  which  comes 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       195 

from  complete  indifference  to  personal  suffering  or 
personal  success.  And  further,  psychology  showed 
us,  that  those  workings  and  readjustments  which 
we  saw  preparing  this  life  of  the  Spirit,  were  In 
line  with  those  which  prepare  us  for  fullness  of 
life  on  other  levels:  that  is  to  say  the  harnessing 
of  the  impulsive  nature  to  the  purposes  chosen  by 
consciousness,  the  resolving  of  conflicts,  the  unifica- 
tion of  the  whole  personality  about  one's  dominant 
interest.  These  readjustments  were  helped  by  the 
deliberate  acceptance  of  the  useful  suggestions  of 
religion,  the  education  of  the  foreconscious,  the 
formation  of  habits  of  charity  and  prayer. 

The  greatest  and  most  real  of  living  writers  on 
this  subject,  Baron  von  Hiigel,  has  given  us  another 
definition  of  the  personal  spiritual  life  which  may 
fruitfully  be  compared  with  this.  It  must  and  shall, 
he  says,  exhibit  rightful  contact  with  and  renuncia- 
tion of  the  Particular  and  Fleeting;  and  with  this 
ever  seeks  and  finds  the  Eternal — deepening  and  in- 
carnating within  its  own  experience  this  "transcen- 
dent Otherness."  ^  Nt)thing  which  we  are  likely  to 
achieve  can  go  beyond  this  profound  saying.  We 
see  how  many  rich  elements  are  contained  in  it :  effort 
and  growth,  a  temper  both  social  and  ascetic,  a  de- 
mand for  and  a  receiving  of  power.  True,  to  some 
extent  it  restates  the  position  at  which  we  arrived 
in  the  first  chapter:  but  we  now  wish  to  examine 

1  This  doctrine  is  fully  worked  out  in  the  last  two  sections  of 
"Eternal   Life." 


196  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

more  thoroughly  into  that  position  and  discover  its 
practical  applications.  Let  us  then  begin  by  un- 
packing it,  and  examining  its  chief  characters  one 
by  one. 

If  we  do  this,  we  find  that  it  demands  of  us: — 

( 1 )  Rightful  contact  with  the  Particular  and 
Fleeting.  That  is,  a  willing  acceptance  of  all  th'is- 
world  tasks,  obligations,  relations,  and  joys;  in  fact, 
the  Active  Life  of  Becoming  In  its  completeness. 

(2)  But  also,  a  certain  renunciation  of  that  Par- 
ticular and  Fleeting.  A  refusal  to  get  everything 
out  of  it  that  we  can  for  ourselves,  to  be  possessive, 
or  attribute  to  it  absolute  worth.  This  involves  a 
sense  of  detachment  or  asceticism;  of  further  des- 
tiny and  obligation  for  the  soul  than  complete 
earthly  happiness  or  here-and-now  success. 

(3)  And  with  this  ever — not  merely  in  hours  of 
devotion — to  seek  and  find  the  Eternal;  penetrat- 
ing our  wholesome  this-world  action  through  and 
through  with  the  very  spirit  of  contemplation. 

(4)  Thus  deepening  and  incarnating — bringing 
in,  giving  body  to,  and  in  some  sense  exhibiting  by 
means  of  our  own  growing  and  changing  experience 
— that  transcendent  Otherness,  the  fact  of  the  Life 
of  the  Spirit  In  the  here-and-now. 

The  full  life  of  the  Spirit,  then,  is  once  more 
declared  to  be  active,  contemplative,  ascetic  and 
apostolic;  though  nowadays  we  express  these  abid- 
ing human  dispositions  in  other  and  less  formidable 
terms.     If  we  translate  them  as  work,  prayer,  self- 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       197 

discipline  and  social  service  they  do  not  look  quite  so 
bad.  But  even  so,  what  a  tremendous  programme 
to  put  before  the  ordinary  human  creature,  and 
how  difficult  it  looks  when  thus  arranged!  That 
balance  to  be  discovered  and  held  between  due  con- 
tact with  this  present  living  world  of  time,  and  due 
renunciation  of  it.  That  continual  penetration  of 
the  time-world  with  the  spirit  of  Eternity. 

But  now,  in  accordance  with  the  ruling  idea  which 
has  occupied  us  in  this  book,  let  us  arrange  these 
four  demands  in  different  order.  Let  us  put  number 
three  first:  "ever  seeking  and  finding  the  Eternal." 
Conceive,  at  least,  that  we  do  this  really,  and  in  a 
practical  way.  Then  we  discover  that,  placed  as  we 
certainly  are  in  a  world  of  succession,  most  of  the 
seeking  and  finding  has  got  to  be  done  there;  that 
the  times  of  pure  abstraction  in  which  we  touch  the 
non-successive  and  supersensual  must  be  few. 
Hence  it  follows  that  the  first  and  second  demands 
are  at  once  fully  met;  for,  if  we  are  indeed  faith- 
fully seeking  and  finding  the  Eternal  whilst  living 
— as  all  sane  men  and  women  must  do — in  closest 
contact  with  the  Particular  and  Fleeting,  our  accept- 
ances and  our  renunciations  will  be  governed  by  this 
higher  term  of  experience.  And  further,  the  tran- 
scendent Otherness,  perpetually  envisaged  by  us  as 
alone  giving  the  world  of  sense  its  beauty,  reality 
and  value,  will  be  incarnated  and  expressed  by  us  in 
this  sense-life,  and  thus  ever  more  completely  tasted 
and  known.     It  will  be  drawn  by  us,  as  best  we  can, 


198  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

and  often  at  the  cost  of  bitter  struggle,  into  the 
limitations  of  humanity;  entincturing  our  attitude 
and  our  actions.  And  in  the  degree  in  which  we 
thus  appropriate  it,  it  will  be  given  out  by  us  again 
to  other  men. 

All  this,  of  course,  says  again  that  which  men  have 
been  constantly  told  by  those  who  sought  to  redeem 
them  from  their  confusions,  and  show  them  the  way 
to  fullness  of  life.  "Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of 
God,"  said  Jesus,  "and  all  the  rest  shall  be  added  to 
you."  "Love,"  said  St.  Augustine,  "and  do  what 
you  like";  "Let  nothing,"  says  Thomas  a  Kempis, 
"be  great  or  high  or  acceptable  to  thee  but  purely 
God";  ^  and  Kabir,  "Open  your  eyes  of  love,  and 
see  Him  who  pervades  this  world!  consider  it  well, 
and  know  that  this  is  your  own  country."  "  "Our 
whole  teaching,"  says  Boehme,  "is  nothing  else  than 
how  man  should  kindle  in  himself  God's  light- 
world."  ^  I  do  not  say  that  such  a  presentation  of 
it  makes  the  personal  spiritual  life  any  easier: 
nothing  does  that.  But  it  does  make  its  central 
implicit  rather  clearer,  shows  us  at  once  its  difficulty 
and  its  simplicity;  since  it  depends  on  the  consistent 
subordination  of  every  Impulse  and  every  action  to 
one  regnant  aim  and  interest — in  other  words,  the 
unification  of  the  whole  self  round  one  centre,  the 
highest  conceivable  by  man.  Each  of  man's  be- 
haviour-cycles is  always  directed  towards  some  end, 

1  De  Imit.     Christi,  Bk.  11,  Cap.  6. 

2  "Six  Theosophic  Points,"  p.  7^. 

^  "One  Hundred  Poems  of  Kabir,"  p.  78. 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       199 

of  which  he  may  or  may  not  be  vividly  conscious. 
But  in  that  perfect  unification  of  the  self  which 
is  characteristic  of  the  life  of  Spirit,  all  his  be- 
haviour is  brought  into  one  stream  of  purpose,  and 
directed  towards  one  transcendent  end.  And  this 
simplification  alone  means  for  him  a  release  from 
conflicting  wishes,  and  so  a  tremendous  increase  of 
power. 

If  then  we  admit  this  formula,  "ever  seeking  and 
finding  the  Eternal" — which  is  of  course  another 
rendering  of  Ruysbroeck's  "aiming  at  God" — as 
the  prime  character  of  a  spiritual  life,  the  secret 
of  human  transcendence;  what  are  the  agents  by 
which  it  is  done? 

Here,  men  and  women  of  all  times  and  all  re- 
ligions, who  have  achieved  this  fullness  of  life, 
agree  in  their  answer:  and  by  this  answer  we  are  at 
once  taken  away  from  dry  philosophic  conceptions 
and  introduced  into  the  very  heart  of  human  ex- 
perience. It  is  done,  they  say,  on  man's  part  by 
Love  and  Prayer:  and  these,  properly  understood 
in  their  inexhaustible  richness,  joy,  pain,  dedica- 
tion and  noble  simplicity,  cover  the  whole  field  of 
the  spiritual  life.  Without  them,  that  life  is  im- 
possible; with  them,  if  the  self  be  true  to  their  im- 
plications, some  measure  of  it  cannot  be  escaped. 
I  said.  Love  and  Prayer  properly  understood :  not  as 
two  movements  of  emotional  piety,  but  as  funda- 
mental human  dispositions,  as  the  typical  attitude 
and  action  which  control  man's  growth  into  greater 


200  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

reality.  Since  then  they  are  of  such  primary  im- 
portance to  us,  it  will  be  worth  while  at  this  stage 
to  look  into  them  a  little  more  closely. 

First,  Love:  that  over-worked  and  ill-used  word, 
often  confused  on  the  one  hand  with  passion  and 
on  the  other  with  amiability.  If  we  ask  the  most 
fashionable  sort  of  psychologist  what  love  is,  he 
says  that  it  is  the  impulse  urging  us  towards  that 
end  which  is  the  fulfilment  of  any  series  of  deeds  or 
"behaviour-cycle";  the  psychic  thread,  on  which  all 
the  apparently  separate  actions  making  up  that  cycle 
are  strung  and  united.  In  this  sense  love  need  not 
be  fully  conscious,  reach  the  level  of  feeling;  but  it 
viust  be  an  imperative,  inward  urge.  And  If  we 
ask  those  who  have  known  and  taught  the  life  of 
the  Spirit,  they  too  say  that  love  is  a  passionate  ten- 
dency, an  inward  vital  urge  of  the  soul  towards  its 
Source;  ^  which  impels  every  living  thing  to  pursue 
the  most  profound  trend  of  its  being,  reaches  con- 
sciousness in  the  form  of  self-giving  and  of  desire, 
and  its  only  satisfying  goal  in  God.  Love  is  for 
them  much  more  than  its  emotional  manifestations. 
It  is  *'the  ultimate  cause  of  the  true  activities  of  all 
active  things" — no  less.  This  definition,  which  I 
take  as  a  matter  of  fact  from  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,^ 
would  be  agreeable  to  the  most  modern  psycholo- 
gist; though  he  might  give  the  hidden  steersman  of 
the  psyche  in  its  perpetual  movement  towards  nov- 

1  Cf.    Ruysbroeck:    "The    Mirror    of    Eternal    Salvation,"    Cap. 
Vlfl. 

'  "In  Librura  B.  Dionysii  de  Divinis  Nominibus  commentaria." 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       201 

elty  a  less  beautiful  and  significant  name.  "This 
indwelling  Love,"  says  Plotinus,  "is  no  other  than 
the  Spirit  which,  as  we  are  told,  walks  with  every 
being,  the  affection  dominant  in  each  several  nature. 
It  implants  the  characteristic  desire;  the  particular 
soul,  strained  towards  its  own  natural  objects,  brings 
forth  its  own  Love,  the  guiding  spirit  realizing  its 
worth  and  the  quality  of  its  being."  ^ 

Does  not  all  this  suggest  to  us  once  more,  that  at 
whatever  level  it  be  experienced,  the  psychic  craving, 
the  urgent  spirit  within  us  pressing  out  to  life,  is 
always  one;  and  that  the  sublimation  of  this  vital 
craving,  its  direction  to  God,  is  the  essence  of  regen- 
eration? There,  in  our  instinctive  nature — which, 
as  we  know,  makes  us  the  kind  of  animal  we  are — 
abides  that  power  of  loving  which  is,  really,  the 
power  of  living;  the  cause  of  our  actions,  the  con- 
trolling factor  in  our  perceptions,  the  force  pressing 
us  into  any  given  type  of  experience,  turning  aside 
for  no  obstacles  but  stimulated  by  them  to  a  greater 
vigour.  Each  level  of  the  universe  makes  solicita- 
tions to  this  power:  the  worlds  of  sense,  of  thought, 
of  beauty,  and  of  action.  According  to  the  degree 
of  our  development,  the  trend  of  the  conscious  will, 
is  our  response;  and  according  to  that  response  will 
be  our  life.  "The  world  to  which  a  man  turns  him- 
self," says  Boehme,  "and  in  which  he  produces  fruit, 
the  same  is  lord  in  him,  and  this  world  becomes  man- 
ifest in  him."  ^ 

1  Ennead  III.  5,  4. 

2  Boehme:  "Six  Theosophic  Points,"  p.  75. 


202  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

From  all  this  it  becomes  clear  what  the  love  of 
God  is;  and  what  St.  Augustine  meant  when  he  said 
that  all  virtue — and  virtue  after  all  means  power  not 
goodness — lay  in  the  right  ordering  of  love,  the 
conscious  orientation  of  desire.  Christians,  on  the 
authority  of  their  Master,  declare  that  such  love 
of  God  requires  all  that  they  have,  not  only  of  feel- 
ing, but  also  of  intellect  and  of  power;  since  He  Is 
to  be  loved  with  heart  and  mind  and  strength. 
Thought  and  action  on  highest  levels  are  involved 
in  it,  for  it  means,  not  religious  emotionalism,  but 
the  unflickering  orientation  of  the  whole  self  towards 
Him,  ever  seeking  and  finding  the  Eternal;  the  link- 
ing up  of  all  behaviour  on  that  string,  so  that  the 
apparently  hard  and  always  heroic  choices  which 
are  demanded,  are  made  at  last  because  they  are 
inevitable.  It  is  true  that  this  dominant  interest 
will  give  to  our  lives  a  special  emotional  colour  and 
a  special  kind  of  happiness;  but  in  this,  as  in  the  best, 
deepest,  richest  human  love,  such  feeling-tone  and 
such  happiness — though  in  some  natures  of  great 
beauty  and  intensity — are  only  to  be  looked  upon 
as  secondary  characters,  and  never  to  be  aimed  at. 

When  St.  Teresa  said  that  the  real  object  of  the 
spiritual  marriage  was  ''the  incessant  production 
of  work,  work,"  ^  I  have  no  doubt  that  many  of  her 
nuns  were  disconcerted;  especially  the  type  of  ease- 
loving  conservatives  whom  she  and  her  intimates 
were  accustomed  to  refer  to  as  the  pussy-cats.     But 

1  "The    Interior    Castle":    Seventh    Habitation,   Cap.    IV. 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       203 

in  this  direct  application  to  religious  experience  of 
St.  Thomas'  doctrine  of  love,  she  set  up  an  ideal  of 
the  spiritual  life  which  is  as  valid  at  the  present  day 
in  the  entanglements  of  our  social  order,  as  it  was  in 
the  enclosed  convents  of  sixteenth-century  Spain. 
Love,  we  said,  is  the  cause  of  action.  It  urges  and 
directs  our  behaviour,  conscious  and  involuntary, 
towards  an  end.  The  mother  is  irresistibly  im- 
pelled to  act  towards  her  child's  welfare,  the  am- 
bitious man  towards  success,  the  artist  towards  ex- 
pression of  his  vision.  All  these  are  examples  of 
behaviour,  love-driven  towards  ends.  And  re- 
ligious experience  discloses  to  us  a  greater  more  in- 
clusive end,  and  this  vital  power  of  love  as  capable 
of  being  used  on  the  highest  levels,  regenerated, 
directed  to  eternal  interests;  subordinating  be- 
haviour, inspiring  suffering,  unifying  the  whole  self 
and  its  activities,  mobilizing  them  for  this  transcen- 
dental achievement.  This  generous  love,  to  go 
back  to  the  quotation  from  Baron  von  Hiigel  which 
opened  our  inquiry,  will  indeed  cause  the  behaviour 
it  controls  to  exhibit  both  rightful  contact  with  and 
renunciation  of  the  particular  and  fleeting;  because 
in  and  through  this  series  of  linked  deeds  it  is  unit- 
ing with  itself  all  human  activities,  and  in  and 
through  them  is  seeking  and  finding  its  eternal  end. 
So,  in  that  rightful  bringing-in  of  novelty  which  is 
the  business  of  the  fully  living  soul,  the  most  power- 
ful agent  is  love,  understood  as  the  controlling  fac- 
tor of  behaviour,  the  sublimation  and  union  of  will 


204  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

and  desire.  "Let  love,"  says  Boehme,  "be  the  life 
of  thy  nature.  It  killeth  thee  not,  but  quickeneth 
thee  according  to  its  Hfe,  and  then  thou  livest,  yet 
not  to  thy  own  will  but  to  its  will :  for  thy  will  be- 
cometh  its  will,  and  then  thou  art  dead  to  thyself 
but  alive  to  God."  ^  There  is  the  true,  solid  and 
for  us  most  fruitful  doctrine  of  divine  union,  uncon- 
nected with  any  rapture,  trance,  ecstasy  or  abnormal 
state  of  mind:  a  union  organic,  conscious,  and  dy- 
namic with  the  Creative  Spirit  of  Life. 

If  we  now  go  on  to  ask  how,  specially,  we  shall 
achieve  this  union  In  such  degree  as  is  possible  to 
each  one  of  us;  the  answer  must  be,  that  It  will  be 
done  by  Prayer.  If  the  seeking  of  the  Eternal  is 
actuated  by  love,  the  finding  of  it  is  achieved 
through  prayer.  Prayer,  In  fact — understood  as 
a  life  or  state,  not  an  act  or  an  asking — is  the  be- 
ginning, middle  and  end  of  all  that  we  are  now 
considering.  As  the  social  self  can  only  be  de- 
veloped by  contact  with  society,  so  the  spiritual  self 
can  only  be  developed  by  contact  with  the  spiritual 
world.  And  such  humble  yet  ardent  contact  with 
the  spiritual  world — opening  up  to  its  suggestions 
our  impulses,  our  reveries,  our  feelings,  our  most 
secret  dispositions  as  well  as  our  mere  thoughts — 
is  the  essence  of  prayer,  understood  In  its  widest 
sense.  No  more  than  surrender  or  love  can  such 
prayer  be  reduced  to  "one  act."  Those  who  seek 
to  sublimate  it  into  "pure"  contemplation  are  as  lim- 

1  Boehme:   "The   Way  to  Christ,"   Pt.   IV. 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       205 

ited  at  one  end  of  the  scale,  as  those  who  reduce  it 
to  articulate  petition  are  at  the  other.  It  contains 
in  itself  a  rich  variety  of  human  reactions  and  ex- 
periences. It  opens  the  door  upon  an  unwalled 
world,  in  which  the  self  truly  lives  and  therefore 
makes  widely  various  responses  to  Its  infinitely  vary- 
ing stimuli.  Into  that  world  the  self  takes,  or 
should  take,  its  special  needs,  aptitudes  and  long- 
ings, and  matches  them  against  its  apprehension  of 
Eternal  Truth.  In  this  meeting  of  the  human  heart 
with  all  that  it  can  apprehend  of  Reality,  not  adora- 
tion alone  but  unbounded  contrition,  not  humble  de- 
pendence alone  but  joy,  peace  and  power,  not  rap- 
ture alone  but  mysterious  darkness,  must  be  woven 
into  the  fabric  of  love.  In  this  world  the  soul  may 
sonletimes  wander  as  if  in  pastures,  sometimes  is 
poised  breathless  and  intent.  Sometimes  it  is  fed 
by  beauty,  sometimes  by  most  difficult  truth,  and  ex- 
periences the  extremes  of  riches  and  destitution, 
darkness  and  light.  "It  is  not,"  says  Plotinus,  "by 
crushing  the  Divine  into  a  unity  but  by  displaying 
its  exuberance,  as  the  Supreme  Himself  has  dis- 
played It,  that  we  show  knowledge  of  the  might  of 
God."  1 

Thus,  by  that  instinctive  and  warmly  devoted  di- 
rection of  Its  behaviour  which  Is  love,  and  that 
willed  attention  to  and  communion  with  the  spirit- 
ual world  which  Is  prayer,  all  the  powers  of  the  self 
are  united  and  turned  towards  the  seeking  and  find- 

1  Ennead  II.  9.  9. 


206  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ing  of  the  Eternal.  It  is  by  complete  obedience  to 
this  exacting  love,  doing  difficult  and  unselfish 
things,  giving  up  easy  and  comfortable  things — in 
fact  by  living,  living  hard  on  the  highest  levels — that 
men  more  and  more  deeply  feel,  experience,  and  enter 
into  their  spiritual  life.  This  is  a  fact  which  must 
seem  rather  awkward  to  those  who  put  forward 
pathological  explanations  of  it.  And  on  the  other 
hand  it  is  only  by  constant  contacts  with  and  re- 
course to  the  energizing  life  of  Spirit,  that  this  hard 
vocation  can  be  fulfilled.  Such  a  power  of  reference 
to  Reality,  of  transcending  the  world  of  succession 
and  its  values,  can  be  cultivated  by  us;  and  this  edu- 
cation of  our  inborn  aptitude  is  a  chief  function  of 
the  discipline  of  prayer.  True,  it  is  only  in  times 
of  recollection  or  of  great  emotion  that  this  pro- 
found contact  is  fully  present  to  consciousness.  Yet, 
once  fully  achieved  and  its  obligations  accepted  by 
us,  it  continues  as  a  grave  melody  within  our  busy 
outward  acts:  and  we  must  by  right  direction  of  our 
deepest  instincts  so  find  and  feel  the  Eternal  all  the 
time,  if  indeed  we  are  to  actualize  and  incarnate  it 
all  the  time.  From  this  truth  of  experience,  re- 
ligion has  deduced  the  doctrine  of  grace,  and  the 
general  conception  of  man  as  able  to  do  nothing 
of  himself.  This  need  hardly  surprise  us.  For 
equally  on  the  physical  plane  man  can  do  nothing 
of  himself,  if  he  be  cut  off  from  his  physical  sources 
of  power;  from  food  to  eat,  and  air  to  breathe. 
Therefore  the  fact  that  his  spiritual  life  too  is  de- 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       207 

pendent  upon  the  life-giving  atmosphere  that  pene- 
trates him,  and  the  heavenly  food  which  he  re- 
ceives, makes  no  fracture  In  his  experience.  Thus 
we  are  brought  back  by  another  path  to  the  funda- 
mental need  for  him,  in  some  form,  of  the  balanced 
active  and  contemplative  life. 

In  spite  of  this,  many  people  seem  to  take  it 
for  granted  that  if  a  man  believes  in  and  desires 
to  live  a  spiritual  life,  he  can  live  It  in  utter  Inde- 
pendence of  spiritual  food.  He  believes  in  God, 
loves  his  neighbour,  wants  to  do  good,  and  just 
goes  ahead.  The  result  of  this  is  that  the  life  of 
the  God-fearing  citizen  or  the  Social  Christian,  as 
now  conceived  and  practised,  is  generally  the  starved 
life.  It  leaves  no  time  for  the  silence,  the  with- 
drawal, the  quiet  attention  to  the  spiritual,  which 
is  essential  If  it  is  to  develop  all  Its  powers.  Yet 
the  literature  of  the  Spirit  is  full  of  warnings  on 
this  subject.  Taste  and  see  that  the  Lord  is  sweet. 
They  that  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew  their 
stfength.  In  quietness  and  confidence  shall  be  your 
strength.  These  are  practical  statements;  ad- 
dressed, not  to  specialists  but  to  ordinary  men  and 
women,  with  a  normal  psycho-physical  make-up. 
They  are  literally  true  now,  or  can  be  if  we  choose. 
They  do  not  involve  any  peculiar  training,  or  un- 
natural effort.  A  sliding  scale  goes  from  the 
simplest  prayer-experience  of  the  ordinary  man  to 
that  complete  self-loss  and  complete  self-finding, 
which  is  called  the  transforming  union  of  the  saint; 


208  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

and  somewhere  in  this  series,  every  human  soul  can 
find  a  place. 

If  this  balanced  life  is  to  be  ours,  if  we  are  to  re- 
ceive what  St.  Augustine  called  the  food  of  the  full- 
grown,  to  find  and  feel  the  Eternal,  we  must  give 
time  and  place  to  it  in  our  lives.  I  emphasize  this, 
because  its  realization  seems  to  me  to  be  a  desperate 
modern  need;  a  need  exhibited  supremely  in  our 
languid  and  ineffectual  spirituality,  but  also  felt  in 
the  too  busy,  too  entirely  active  and  hurried  lives  of 
the  artist,  the  reformer  and  the  teacher.  St.  John 
of  the  Cross  says  in  one  of  his  letters:  "What  is 
wanting  is  not  writing  or  talking — there  is  more 
than  enough  of  that — but,  silence  and  action.  For 
silence  joined  to  action  produces  recollection,  and 
gives  the  spirit  a  marvellous  strength."  Such  rec- 
ollection, such  a  gathering  up  of  our  interior  forces 
and  retreat  of  consciousness  to  its  "ground,"  is  the 
preparation  of  all  great  endeavour,  whatever  its 
apparent  object  may  be.  Until  we  realize  that  it 
is  better,  more  useful,  more  productive  of  strength, 
to  spend,  let  us  say,  the  odd  ten  minutes  in  the  morn- 
ing in  feeling  and  finding  the  Eternal  than  in  flick- 
ing the  newspaper — that  this  will  send  us  off  to  the 
day's  work  properly  orientated,  gathered  together, 
recollected,  and  really  endowed  with  new  power  of 
dealing  with  circumstance — we  have  not  begun  to 
live  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  or  grasped  the  practical 
connection  between  such  a  daily  discipline  and  the 
power  of  doing  our  best  work,  whatever  it  may  be. 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       209 

I  will  illustrate  this  from  a  living  example:  that 
of  the  Sadhu  Sundar  Singh.  No  one,  I  suppose, 
who  came  into  personal  contact  with  the  Sadhu, 
doubted  that  they  were  in  the  presence  of  a  person 
who  was  living,  in  the  full  sense,  the  spiritual  life. 
Even  those  who  could  not  accept  the  symbols  in 
which  he  described  his  experience  and  asked  others 
to  share  it,  acknowledged  that  there  had  been 
worked  in  him  a  great  transformation;  that  the 
sense  of  the  abiding  and  eternal  went  with  him 
everywhere,  and  flowed  out  from  him,  to  calm  and 
to  correct  our  feverish  lives.  He  fully  satisfies  in 
his  own  person  the  demands  of  Baron  von  Hiigel's 
definition :  both  contact  with  and  renunciation  of  the 
Particular  and  Fleeting,  seeking  and  finding  of  the 
Eternal,  incarnating  within  his  own  experience  that 
transcendent  Otherness.  Now  the  Sadhu  has  dis- 
covered for  himself  and  practises  as  the  condition 
of  his  extraordinary  activity,  power  and  endurance, 
just  that  balance  of  life  which  St.  Benedict's  rule 
ordained.  He  is  a  wandering  missionary,  con- 
stantly undertaking  great  journeys,  enduring  hard- 
ship and  dangef,  and  practising  the  absolute  pov- 
erty of  St.  Francis.  He  is  perfectly  healthy,  strong, 
extraordinarily  attractive,  full  of  power.  But  this 
power  he  is  careful  to  nourish.  His  irreducible 
minimum  is  two  hours  spent  in  meditation  and  word- 
less communication  with  God  at  the  beginning  of 
each  day.  He  prefers  three  or  four  hours  when 
work  permits;   and   a   long  period  of  prayer   and 


210  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

meditation  always  precedes  his  public  address.  If 
forced  to  curtail  or  hurry  these  hours  of  prayer,  he 
feels  restless  and  unhappy,  and  his  efficiency  is  re- 
duced. "Prayer,"  he  says,  "is  as  important  as 
breathing;  and  we  never  say  we  have  no  time  to 
breathe."  i 

All  this  has  been  explained  away  by  critics  of  the 
muscular  Christian  sort,  who  say  that  the  Sadhu's 
Christianity  is  of  a  typically  Eastern  kind.  But 
this  is  simply  not  true.  It  were  much  better  to 
acknowledge  that  we,  more  and  more,  are  tending 
to  develop  a  typically  Western  kind  of  Christianity, 
marked  by  the  Western  emphasis  on  doing  and 
Western  contempt  for  being;  and  that  if  we  go 
sufficiently  far  on  this  path  we  shall  find  ourselves 
cut  off  from  our  source.  The  Sadhu's  Christianity 
is  fully  Christian;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  whole  and  com- 
plete. The  power  in  which  he  does  his  works  is 
that  in  which  St.  Paul  carried  through  his  heroic 
missionary  career,  St.  Benedict  formed  a  spiritual 
family  that  transformed  European  culture,  Wesley 
made  the  whole  world  his  parish,  Elizabeth  Fry 
faced  the  Newgate  criminals.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of 
the  revival  of  a  personal  spiritual  life  among  our- 
selves, or  of  a  spiritual  regeneration  of  society — 
for  this  can  only  come  through  the  individual  re- 
making of  each  of  its  members — unless  we  are  will- 
ing, at  the  sacrifice  of  some  personal  convenience, 
to  make  a  place  and  time  for  these  acts  of  recollec- 

^  "Streeter  and  Appasamy:  "The  Sadhu,"  pp.  98,  100  et  seq.,  213. 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       211 

tion;  this  willing  and  loving — and  even  more  fruit- 
ful, the  more  willing  and  loving — communion  with, 
response  to  Reality,  to  God.  It  is  true  that  a  fully 
lived  spiritual  life  involves  far  more  than  this.  But 
this  is  the  only  condition  on  which  it  will  exist  at 
all. 

Love  then,  which  is  a  willed  tendency  to  God; 
prayer,  which  is  willed  communion  with  and  ex- 
perience of  Him;  are  the  two  prime  essentials  in 
the  personal  life  of  the  Spirit.  They  represent,  ot 
course,  only  our  side  of  it  and  our  obligation.  This 
love  is  the  outflowing  response  to  another  inflow- 
ing love,  and  this  prayer  the  appropriation  of  a 
transcendental  energy  and  grace.  As  the  "German 
Theology"'  reminds  us,  "I  cannot  do  the  work  with- 
out -God,  and  God  may  not  or  will  not  without 
me."  ^  And  by  these  acts  alone,  faithfully  carried 
through,  all  their  costly  demands  fulfilled,  all  their 
gifts  and  applications  accepted  without  resistance 
and  applied  to  each  aspect  of  life,  human  nature 
can  grow  up  to  its  full  stature,  and  obtain  access 
to  all  its  sources  of  power. 

Yet  this  personal  inward  life  of  love  and  prayer 
shall  not  be  too  solitary.  As  it  needs  links  with 
cultus  and  so  with  the  lives  of  its  fellows,  it  also 
needs  links  with  history  and  so  with  the  living  past. 
These  links  are  chiefly  made  by  the  Individual 
through  his  reading;  and  such  reading — such  ac- 
cess to  humanity's  hoarded  culture  and  experience 

1  "Theologia   Germanica,"    Cap.  III. 


212  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

— has  always  been  declared  alike  by  Christian  and 
non-Christian  asceticism  to  be  one  of  the  proper 
helps  of  the  spiritual  life.  Though  Hoffding  per- 
haps exaggerates  when  he  reminds  us  that  mediaeval 
art  always  depicts  the  saints  as  deeply  absorbed  in 
their  books,  and  suggests  that  such  brooding  study 
directly  induces  contemplative  states,  ^  yet  it  is  true 
that  the  soul  gains  greatly  from  such  communion 
with,  and  meek  learning  from,  its  cultural  back- 
ground. Ever  more  and  more  as  it  advances,  it 
will  discover  within  that  background  the  records  of 
those  very  experiences  which  it  must  now  so 
poignantly  relive;  and  which  seem  to  it,  as  his 
own  experience  seems  to  every  lover,  unique.  There 
it  can  find,  without  any  betrayal  of  its  secret,  the 
wholesome  assurance  of  its  own  normality;  stand- 
ards of  comparison;  companionship,  alike  in  its 
hours  of  penitence,  of  light,  and  of  deprivation. 
Yet  such  fruitful  communion  with  the  past  is  not 
the  privilege  of  an  aristocratic  culture.  It  is  seen 
in  its  perfection  in  many  simple  Christians  who 
have  found  in  the  Bible  all  the  spiritual  food  they 
need.  The  great  literature  of  the  Spirit  tells  its 
secrets  to  those  alone  who  thus  meet  it  on  its  own 
ground.  Not  only  the  works  of  Thomas  a  Kempis, 
of  Ruysbroeck,  or  of  St.  Teresa,  but  also  the  Bibli- 
cal writers — and  especially,  perhaps,  the  Psalms 
and  the  Gospels — are  read  wholly  anew  by  us  at 
each  stage  of  our  advance.     Comparative  study  of 

1  Hoffding,   "The  Philosophy  of  Religion,"   III,  B. 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       213 

Hindu  and  Moslem  writers  proves  that  tRis  is 
equally  true  of  the  great  literatures  of  other  faiths.* 
Beginners  may  find  in  all  these  infinite  stimulus,  in- 
terest, and  beauty.  But  to  the  mature  soul  they 
become  road-books,  of  which  experience  proves  the 
astonishing  exactitude;  giving  it  descriptions  which 
it  can  recognize  and  directions  that  it  needs,  and 
constituting  a  steady  check  upon  individualism. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  emergence  of  this  life 
which  we  have  been  considering,  and  at  the  typical 
path  which  it  will  or  may  follow,  in  an  ordinary 
man  or  woman  of  our  own  day.  Not  a  saint  or 
genius,  reaching  heroic  levels;  but  a  member  of 
that  solid  wholesome  spiritual  population  which 
ought  to  fill  the  streets  of  the  City  of  God.  We 
noticed  when  we  were  studying  its  appearance  in 
history,  that  often  this  life  begins  in  a  sort  of  rest- 
lessness, a  feeling  that  there  is  something  more  in 
existence,  some  absolute  meaning,  some  more  search- 
ing obligation,  that  we  have  not  reached.  This 
dissatisfaction,  this  uncertainty  and  hunger,  may- 
show  itself  in  many  different  forms.  It  may  speak 
first  to  the  intellect,  to  the  moral  nature,  to  the 
social  conscience,  even  to  the  artistic  faculty;  or, 
directly,  to  the  heart.  Anyhow,  its  abiding  quality 
is  a  sense  of  contraction,  of  limitation;  a  feeling 
of  something  more  that  we  could  stretch  out  to, 
and  achieve,  and  be.     Its  impulsion  is  always  in  one 

1  There  are,  for  instance,  several  striking  instances  in  the  Auto- 
biography of  the  Maharishi   Devendranath  Tagore. 


214  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

direction;  to  a  finding  of  some  wider  and  more  en- 
during reality,  some  objective  for  the  self's  life  and 
love.  It  is  a  seeking  of  the  Eternal,  in  some  form.  I 
allow  that  thanks  to  the  fog  in  which  we  live  muffled, 
such  a  first  seeking,  and  above  all  such  a  finding 
of  the  Eternal  is  not  for  us  a  very  easy  thing. 
The  s^nse  of  quest,  of  disillusion,  of  something 
lacking,  is  more  common  among  modern  men  than 
its  resolution  in  discovery.  Nevertheless  the  qu-est 
does  mean  that  there  is  a  solution:  and  that 
those  who  are  persevering  must  find  it  in  the  end. 
The  world  into  which  our  desire  is  truly  turned,  is 
somehow  revealed  to  us.  The  revelation,  always 
partial  and  relative,  is  of  course  conditioned  by 
our  capacity,  the  character  of  our  longing  and  the 
experiences  of  our  past.  In  spiritual  matters  we 
behold  that  which  we  are :  here  following,  on 
higher  levels,  the  laws  which  govern  aesthetic  ap- 
prehension. 

So,  dissatisfied  with  its  world-view  and  realizing 
that  it  is  incomplete,  the  self  seeks  at  first  hand, 
though  not  always  with  clear  consciousness  of  its 
nature,  the  Reality  which  is  the  object  of  religion. 
When  it  finds  this  Reality,  the  discovery,  however 
partial,  is  for  it  the  overwhelming  revelation  of  an 
objective  Fact;  and  it  is  swept  by  a  love  and  awe 
which  it  did  not  know  itself  to  possess.  And  now 
it  sees,  dimly,  yet  in  a  sufiiciently  disconcerting  way, 
the  Pattern  in  the  Mount;  the  rich  complex  of 
existence  as  it  were  transmuted,  full  of  charity  and 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       215 

beauty,  governed  by  another  series  of  adjustments. 
Life  looks  different  to  it.  As  Fox  said,  "Creation 
gives  out  another  smell  than  before."  ^  There  is 
only  one  thing  more  disconcerting  than  this,  and 
that  is  seeing  the  pattern  actualized  in  a  fellow 
human  being:  living  face  to  face  with  human 
sanctity,  in  its  great  simplicity  and  supernatural 
love,  joy,  peace.  For,  when  we  glimpse  Eternal 
Beauty  in  the  universe,  we  can  say  with  the  hero 
of  "Callista,"  "It  is  beyond  me!"  But,  when  we 
see  it  transfiguring  human  character,  we  know  that 
it  is  not  beyond  the  power  of  the  race.  It  is  here, 
to  be  had.  Its  existence  as  a  form  of  life  creates 
a  standard,  and  lays  an  obligation  on  us  all. 

Suppose  then  that  the  self,  urged  by  this  new 
pressure,  accepts  the  obligation  and  measures  itself 
by  the  standard.  It  then  becomes  apparent  that 
this  Fact  which  it  sought  for  and  has  seen  is  not 
merely  added  to  its  old  universe,  as  in  mediaeval 
pictures  Paradise  with  its  circles  over-arches  the 
earth.  This  Reality  is  all-penetrating  and  has 
transfigured  each  aspect  of  the  self's  old  world.  It 
now  has  a  new  and  most  exacting  scale  of  values, 
which  demand  from  it  a  new  series  of  adjustments; 
ask  it — and  with  authority — to  change  its  life. 

What  next?  The  next  thing,  probably,  is  that 
the  self  finds  itself  in  rather  a  tight  place.  It  is 
wedged  into  a  physical  order  that  makes  innumer- 
able calls  on  it,  and  innumerable  suggestions  to  it: 

1  "Fox's  Journal,"  Vol.  I,  Cap.  2. 


216  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

which  has  for  years  monopolized  its  field  of  con- 
sciousness and  set  up  habits  of  resp.onse  to  its  claims. 
It  has  to  make  some  kind  of  a  break  with  this  order, 
or  at  least  with  its  many  attachments  thereto;  and 
stretch  to  the  wider  span  demanded  by  the  new  and 
larger  world.  And  further,  it  is  in  possession  of 
a  complex  psychic  life,  containing  many  insubor- 
dinate elements,  many  awkward  bequests  from  a 
primitive  past.  That  psychic  life  has  just  received 
the  powerful  and  direct  suggestion  of  the  Spirit; 
and  for  the  moment,  it  is  subdued  to  that  sugges- 
tion. But  soon  it  begins  to  experience  the  inevi- 
table conflict  between  old  habits  and  new  demands 
— between  a  life  lived  in  the  particular  and  in  the 
universal  spirit — and  only  through  complete  resolu- 
tion of  that  conflict  will  it  develop  its  full  power. 
So  the  self  quickly  realizes  that  the  theologian's  war 
between  Nature  and  Grace  is  a  picturesque  way  of 
stating  a  real  situation;  and  further  that  the  de- 
mand of  all  religions  for  a  change  of  heart — that 
is,  of  the  deep  instinctive  nature — is  the  first  con- 
dition of  a  spiritual  life.  And  hence,  that  its  hands 
are  fairly  full.  It  is  true  that  an  immense  joy  and 
hope  come  with  it  to  this  business  of  tackling  im- 
perfection, of  adjusting  itself  to  the  newly  found 
centre  of  life.  It  knows  that  It  is  committed  to 
the  forward  movement  of  a  Power,  which  may  be 
slow  but  which  nothing  can  gainsay.  Neverthe- 
less the  first  thing  that  power  demands  from  it  Is 
courage;  and  the  next  an  unremitting  vigorous  effort. 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       217 

It  will  never  again  be  able  to  sink  back  cosily  into 
its  racial  past.  Consciousness  of  disharmony  and 
incompleteness  now  brings  the  obligation  to  mend 
the  disharmony  and  achieve  a  fresh  synthesis. 

This  is  felt  with  a  special  sharpness  in  the  moral 
life,  where  the  irreconcilable  demands  of  natural 
self-interest  and  of  Spirit  assume  their  most  intract- 
able shape.  Old  habits  and  paths  of  discharge 
which  have  almost  become  automatic  must  now,  it 
seems,  be  abandoned.  New  paths,  in  spite  of  resist- 
ances, must  be  made.  Thus  it  is  that  temptation, 
hard  conflict,  and  bewildering  perplexities  usher  in 
the  life  of  the  Spirit.  These  are  largely  the  re- 
sults of  our  biological  past  continuing  into  our 
fluctuating  half-made  present;  and  they  point  to- 
wards a  psychic  stability,  an  inner  unity  we  have  not 
yet  attained. 

This  realization  of  ourselves  as  we  truly  are — 
emerging  with  difficulty  from  our  animal  origin, 
tinctured  through  and  through  with  the  self-regard- 
ing tendencies  and  habits  it  has  imprinted  on  us — 
this  realization  or  self-knowledge,  is  Humility;  the 
only  soil  in  which  the  spiritual  life  can  germinate. 
And  modern  man  with  his  great  horizons,  his  ever 
clearer  vision  of  his  own  close  kinship  with  life's 
origin,  his  small  place  in  the  time-stream,  in  the 
universe,  in  God's  hand,  the  relativ^e  character  of 
his  best  knowledge  and  achleveinent,  is  surely  every- 
where being  persuaded  to  this  royal  virtue.  Recog- 
nition of  this  his  true  creaturely  status,  with  its  ob- 


218  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ligations — the  only  process  of  pain  and  struggle 
needed  if  the  demands  of  generous  love  are  ever  to 
be  fulfilled  in  him  and  his  many-levelled  nature  is 
to  be  purified  and  harmonized  and  develop  all  its 
powers — this  is  Repentance.  He  shows  not  only 
his  sincerity-,  but  his  manliness  and  courage  by  his 
acceptance  of  all  that  such  repentance  entails  on 
him;  fo^  the  healthy  soul,  like  the  healthy  body, 
welcomes  some  trial  and  roughness  and  is  well  able 
to  bear  the  pains  of  education.  Psychologists  re- 
gard such  an  education,  harmonizing  the  rational 
or  ideal  with  the  instinctive  life — the  change  of 
heart  which  leaves  the  whole  self  working  together 
without  inner  conflict  towards  one  objective — as  the 
very  condition  of  a  full  and  healthy  life.  But  it 
can  only  be  achieved  in  its  perfection  by  the  com- 
plete surrender  of  heart  and  mind  to  a  third  term, 
transcending  alike  the  impulsive  and  the  rational. 
The  life  of  the  Spirit  in  its  supreme  authority,  and 
its  identification  with  the  highest  interests  of  the 
race,  does  this:  harnessing  man's  fiery  energies  to 
the  service  of  the  Light. 

Therefore,  in  the  rich,  new  life  on  which  the  self 
enters,  one  strand  must  be  that  of  repentance, 
catharsis,  self-conquest:  a  complete  contrition  which 
is  the  earnest  of  complete  generosity,  uncalculated 
response.  And,  dealing  as  we  are  now  Avith  aver- 
age human  nature,  we  can  safely  say  that  the  need 
for  such  ever-renewed  self-scrutiny  and  self-purga- 
tion will  never  in  this  life  be  left  behind.     For  sin 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       219 

is  a  fact,  though  a  fact  which  we  do  not  under- 
stand; and  now  it  appears  and  must  evermore  re- 
main an  offence  against  love,  hostile  to  this  intense 
new  attraction,  and  marring  the  self's  willed  ten- 
dency towards  it. 

The  next  strand  we  may  perhaps  call  that  of 
Recollection :  for  the  r'ecognizing  and  the  cure  of 
imperfection  depends  on  the  compensating  search 
for  the  Perfect  and  its  enthronement  as  the  supreme 
object  of  our  thought  and  love.  The  self,  then, 
soon  begins  to  feel  a  strong  impulsion  to  some  type 
of  inward  withdrawal  and  concentration,  some  kind 
of  prayer;  though  it  may  not  use  this  name  or  recog- 
nize the  character  of  its  mood.  As  it  yields  to  this 
strange  new  drawing,  such  recollection  grows  easier. 
It  finds  that  there  is  a  veritable  inner  world,  not 
merely  of  phantasy,  but  of  profound  heart-search- 
ing experience;  where  the  soul  is  in  touch  with  an- 
other order  of  realities  and  knows  itself  to  be  an 
inheritor  of  Eternal  Life.  Here  unique  things  hap- 
pen. A  power  is  at  work,  and  new  apprehensions 
are  born.  And  now  for  the  first  time  the  self  dis- 
covers itself  to  be  striking  a  balance  between  this 
inner  and  the  outer  life,  and  in  its  own  small  way 
— but  still,  most  fruitfully — enriching  action  with 
the  fruits  of  contemplation.  If  it  will  give  to  the 
learning  of  this  new^  art — to  the  disciplining  and 
refining  of  this  affective  thought — even  a  fraction  of 
the  diligence  which  it  gives  to  the  learning  of  a 
new  game,  it  will  find  itself  repaid  by  a  progressive 


220  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

purity  of  vision,  a  progressive  sense  of  assurance, 
an  ever-increasing  delicacy  of  moral  discrimination 
and  demand.  Psychologists,  as  we  have  seen,  divide 
men  into  introverts  and  extroverts;  but  as  a  matter 
9f  fact  we  must  regard  both  these  extreme  types 
as  defective.  A  whole  man  should  be  supple  in 
his  reactions  both  to  the  inner  and  to  the  outer 
world. 

The  third  strand  in  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  for 
this  normal  self  which  we  are  considering,  must  be 
the  disposition  of  complete  Surrender.  More  and 
more  advancing  in  this  inner  life,  it  will  feel  the 
imperative  attraction  of  Reality,  of  God;  and  it 
must  respond  to  this  attraction  with  all  the  courage 
and  generosity  of  which  it  is  capable.  I  am  try- 
ing to  use  the  simplest  and  the  most  general 
language,  and  to  avoid  emotional  imagery:  though 
it  is  here,  in  telling  of  this  perpetually  renewed 
act  of  self-giving  and  dedication,  that  spiritual 
writers  most  often  have  recourse  to  the  language  of 
the  heart.  It  is  indeed  in  a  spirit  of  intensest  and 
most  humble  adoration  that  generous  souls  yield 
themselves  to  the  drawing  of  that  mysterious  Beauty 
and  unchanging  Love,  with  all  that  it  entails.  But 
the  form  which  the  impulse  to  surrender  takes  will 
vary  with  the  psychic  make-up  of  the  individual. 
To  some  it  will  come  as  a  sense  of  vocation,  a 
making-over  of  the  will  to  the  purposes  of  the 
Kingdom;  a  type  of  consecration  which  may  not 
be  overtly  religious,  but  may  be  concerned  with  the 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       221 

self-forgetting  quest  of  social  excellence,  of  beauty, 
or  of  truth.  By  some  it  will  be  felt  as  an  illumina- 
tion of  the  mind,  which  now  discerns  once  for  all 
true  values,  and  accepting  these,  must  uphold  and 
strive  for  them  in  the  teeth  of  all  opportunism.' 
By  some — and  these  are  the  most  blessed — as  a 
breaking  and  re-making  of  the  heart.  Whatever 
the  form  it  takes,  the  extent  in  which  the  self  ex- 
periences the  peace,  joy  and  power  of  living  at  the 
level  of  Spirit  will  depend  on  the  completeness  and 
singlemindedness  of  this,  its  supreme  act  of  self- 
simplification.  Any  reserves,  anything  in  its  make- 
up which  sets  up  resistances — and  this  means  gen- 
erally any  form  of  egotism — will  mar  the  harmony 
of  the  process.  And  on  the  other  hand,  such  a 
real  simplification  of  the  self's  life  as  is  here  de- 
manded— uniting  on  one  object,  the  intellect,  will 
and  feeling  too  often  split  among  contradictory  at- 
tractions— is  itself  productive  of  inner  harmony  and 
Increased  power:  productive  too  of  that  noble  en- 
durance which  counts  no  pain  too  much  in  the  serv- 
ice of  Reality. 

Here  then  we  come  to  the  fact,  valid  for  every 
level  of  spiritual  life,  which  lies  behind  all  the  dec- 
larations concerning  surrender,  self-loss,  dying  to 
live,  dedication,  made  by  writers  on  this  theme.  All 
involve  a  relaxing  of  tension,  letting  ourselves  go 
without  reluctance  in  the  direction  in  which  we  are 
most  profoundly  drawn;  a  cessation  of  our  struggles 
with  the  tide,  our  kicks  against  the  pricks  that  spur 


222  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

us  on.  The  inward  aim  of  the  self  is  towards  uni- 
fication with  a  larger  life;  a  mergence  with  Reality 
which  it  may  describe  under  various  contradictory 
symbols,  or  may  not  be  able  to  describe  at  all,  but 
which  it  feels  to  be  the  fulfilment  of  existence.  It 
has  learnt — though  this  knowledge  may  not  have 
passed  beyond  the  stage  of  feeling — that  the  uni- 
verse is  one  simple  texture,  in  which  all  things  have 
their  explanation  and  their  place.  Combing  out  the 
confusions  which  enmesh  it,  losing  its  sham  and 
separate  life  and  finding  its  true  life  there,  it  will 
know  what  to  love  and  how  to  act.  The  goal  of 
this  process,  which  has  been  called  entrance  into  the 
freedom  of  the  Will  of  God,  is  the  state  described 
by  the  writer  of  the  "German  Theology"  when  he 
said  "I  would  fain  be  to  the  Eternal  Goodness  what 
his  own  hand  is  to  a  man."  ^  For  such  a  declara- 
tion not  only  means  a  willed  and  skilful  working 
for  God,  a  practical  siding  with  Perfection,  be- 
coming its  living  tool,  but  also  close  union  with,  and 
sharing  of,  the  vital  energy  of  the  spiritual  order: 
a  feeding  on  and  using  of  its  power,  its  very  life 
blood,  complete  docility  to  its  inward  direction,  ab- 
olition of  separate  desire.  The  surrender  is  there- 
fore made  not  in  order  that  we  may  become  limp 
pietists,  but  in  order  that  we  may  receive  more  en- 
ergy and  do  better  work:  by  a  humble  self-subjec- 
tion more  perfectly  helping  forward  the  thrust  of 
the   Spirit  and   the   primal   human  business   of  in- 

1  "Theologia   Germanica,"   Cap.    lo. 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       223 

carnating  the  Eternal  here  and  now.  Its  justifica- 
tion is  in  the  arduous  but  untiring,  various  but  har- 
monious, activities  that  flow  from  it:  the  enhance- 
ment of  life  which  it  entails.  It  gives  us  access  to 
our  real  sources  of  power;  that  we  may  take  frorn 
them  and,  spending  generously,  be  energized  anew. 

So  the  cord  on  which  those  events  which  make 
up  the  personal  life  of  the  Spirit  are  to  be  strung 
is  completed,  and  we  see  that  it  consists  of  four 
strands.  Two  are  dispositions  of  the  self;  Peni- 
tence and  Surrender.  Two  are  activities;  inward 
Recollection  and  outward  Work.  All  four  make 
stern  demands  on  its  fortitude  and  goodwill.  And 
each  gives  strength  to  the  rest:  for  they  are  not  to 
be  regarded  as  separate  and  successive  states,  a  dis- 
crete series  through  which  we  must  pass  one 
by  one,  leaving  penitence  behind  us  when  we 
reach  surrendered  love;  but  as  the  variable  yet  en- 
during and  inseparable  aspects  of  one  rich  life, 
phases  in  one  complete  and  vital  effort  to  respond 
more  and  more  closely  to  Reality. 

Nothing,  perhaps,  is  less  monotonous  than  the 
personal  life  of  the  Spirit.  In  its  humility  and  joy- 
ous love,  its  adoration  and  its  industry,  it  may  find 
self-expression  in  any  one  of  the  countless  activities 
of  the  world  of  time.  It  is  both  romantic  and  aus- 
tere, both  adventurous  and  holy.  Full  of  fluctua- 
tion and  unearthly  colour,  it  yet  has  its  dark  patches 
as  well  as  its  light.  Since  perfect  proof  of  the 
supersensual  is  beyond  the  span  of  human  conscious- 


224  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ness,  the  element  of  risk  can  never  be  eliminated: 
we  are  obliged  in  the  end  to  trust  the  universe  and 
live  by  faith.  Therefore  the  awakened  soul  must 
often  suffer  perplexity,  share  to  the  utmost  the 
stress  and  anguish  of  the  physical  order;  and, 
chained  as  it  is  to  a  consciousness  accustomed  to 
respond  to  that  order,  must  still  be  content  with 
flashes  of  understanding  and  willing  to  bear  long 
periods  of  destitution  when  the  light  is  veiled. 

The  further  it  advances  the  more  bitter  will  these 
periods  of  destitution  seem  to  it.  It  is  not  from 
the  real  men  and  women  of  the  Spirit  that  we  hear 
soft  things  about  the  comfort  of  faith.  For  the 
true  life  of  faith  gives  everything  worth  having  and 
takes  everything  worth  offering:  with  unrelenting 
blows  it  welds  the  self  into  the  stuff  of  the  universe, 
subduing  it  to  the  universal  purpose,  doing  away 
with  the  flame  of  separation.  Though  joy  and 
inward  peace  even  in  desolation  are  dominant  marks 
of  those  who  have  grown  up  into  it,  still  it  offers 
to  none  a  succession  of  supersensual  delights.  The 
life  of  the  Spirit  involves  the  sublimation  of  that 
pleasure-pain  rhythm  which  is  characteristic  of  nor- 
mal consciousness,  and  if  for  it  pleasure  becomes 
joy,  pain  becomes  the  Cross.  Toil,  abnegation, 
sacrifice,  are  therefore  of  its  essence;  but  these  are 
not  felt  as  a  heavy  burden,  because  they  are  the  ex- 
pression of  love.  It  entails  a  willed  tension  and 
choice,  a  noble  power  of  refusal,  which  are  not  en- 
tirely covered  by  being  "in  tune  with  the  Infinite." 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       225 

As  our  life  comes  to  maturity  we  discover  to  our  con- 
fusion that  human  ears  can  pick  up  from  the  Infinite 
many  incompatible  tunes,  but  cannot  hear  the  whole 
symphony.  And  the  melody  confided  to  our  care, 
the  one  which  we  alone  perhaps  can  contribute  and 
which  taxes  our  powers  to  the  full,  has  in  it  not 
only  the  notes  of  triumph  but  the  notes  of  pain. 
The  distinctive  mark  therefore  is  not  happiness  but 
vocation:  work  demanded  and  power  given,  but 
given  only  on  condition  that  we  spend  It  and  our- 
selves on  others  without  stint.  These  propositions, 
of  course,  are  easily  Illustrated  from  history:  but 
we  can  also  illustrate  them  in  our  own  persons  if 
we  choose. 

Should  we  choose  this,  and  should  life  of  the  Spirit 
be  achieved  by  us — and  it  will  only  be  done  through 
daily  discipline  and  attention  to  the  Spiritual, 
a  sacrifice  of  comfort  to  its  interests,  following  up 
the  intuition  which  sets  us  on  the  path — what  bene- 
fits may  we  as  ordinary  men  expect  it  to  bring  to 
us  and  to  the  community  that  we  serve?  It  will 
certainly  bring  into  life  new  zest  and  new  meaning; 
a  widening  of  the  horizon  and  consciousness  of  se- 
curity; a  fresh  sense  of  joys  to  be  had  and  of  work 
to  be  done.  The  real  spiritual  consciousness  is 
positive  and  constructive  In  type:  it  does  not  look 
back  on  the  past  sins  and  mistakes  of  the  individual 
or  of  the  community,  but  In  its  other-world  faith 
and  this-world  charity  is  inspired  by  a  forward- 
moving  spirit  of  hope.     Seeking  alone  the  honour 


226  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

of  Eternal  Beauty,  and  because  of  its  invulnerable 
sense  of  security,  it  is  adventurous.  The  spiritual 
man  and  woman  can  afford  to  take  desperate 
chances,  and  live  dangerously  in  the  interests  of 
their  ideals;  being  delivered  from  the  many  un- 
real fears  and  anxieties  which  commonly  torment 
us,  and  knowing  the  unimportance  of  possessions 
and  of  so-called  success.  The  joy  which  waits  on 
disinterested  love  and  the  confidence  which  follows 
surrender,  cannot  fail  them.  Moreover,  the  in- 
ward harmony  and  assurance,  the  consciousness  of 
access  to  that  Spirit  who  is  in  a  literal  sense 
"health's  eternal  spring"  means  a  healing  of  nerv- 
ous miseries,  and  invigoration  of  the  usually  ill- 
treated  mind  and  body,  and  so  an  all-round  in- 
crease in  happiness  and  power. 

"The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace,  long 
suffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meekness, 
temperance."  This,  said  St.  Paul,  who  knew  by 
experience  the  worlds  of  grace  and  of  nature,  is 
what  a  complete  man  ought  to  be  like.  Compare 
this  picture  of  an  equable  and  fully  harmonized  per- 
sonality with  that  of  a  characteristic  neurasthenic, 
a  bored  sensualist,  or  an  embittered  worker,  con- 
centrated on  the  struggle  for  a  material  advantage: 
and  consider  that  the  central  difference  between 
these  types  of  human  success  and  human  failure 
abides  in  the  presence  or  absence  of  a  spiritual  con- 
ception of  life.  We  do  not  yet  know  the  limits  of 
the  upgrowth  into  power  and  happiness  which  com- 


LIFE  OF  SPIRIT  IN  THE  INDIVIDUAL       227 

plete  and  practical  surrender  to  this  conception  can 
work  in  us;  or  what  its  general  triumph  might  do 
for  the  transformation  of  the  world.  And  it  may 
even  be  that  beyond  the  joy  and  renewal  which  come 
from  self-conquest  and  unification,  a  level  of  spirit- 
ual life  most  certainly  open  to  all  who  will  really 
work  for  it;  and  beyond  that  deeper  insight,  more 
widespreading  love,  and  perfection  of  adjustment 
to  the  here-and-now  which  we  recognize  and  rever- 
ence as  the  privilege  of  the  pure  in  heart — beyond 
all  these,  it  may  be  that  life  still  reserves  for  man 
another  secret  and  another  level  of  consciousness; 
a  closer  identification  with  Reality,  such  as  eye  hatli 
not  seen,  or  ear  heard. 

And  note,  that  this  spiritual  life  which  we  have 
here  considered  is  not  an  aristocratic  life.  It  Is 
a  life  of  which  the  fundamentals  are  given  by  the 
simplest  kinds  of  traditional  piety,  and  have  been 
exhibited  over  and  over  again  by  the  simplest  souls. 
An  unconditional  self-surrender  to  the  Divine  Will, 
under  whatever  symbols  it  may  be  thought  of;  for 
we  know  that  the  very  crudest  of  symbols  Is  often 
strong  enough  to  make  a  bridge  between  the  heart 
and  the  Eternal,  and  so  be  a  vehicle  of  the  Spirit 
of  Life.  A  little  silence  and  leisure.  A  great  deal 
of  faithfulness,  kindness,  and  courage.  All  this  is 
within  the  reach  of  anyone  who  cares  enough  for 
it  to  pay  the  price. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION 

In  the  past  six  chapters  we  have  been  consider- 
ing in  the  main  our  own  position,  and  how,  here 
in  the  present,  we  as  adults  may  actuaHze  and  help 
on  the  spiritual  life  in  ourselves.  But  our  best  hope 
of  giving  Spirit  its  rightful,  full  expression  within  the 
time-world  lies  in  the  future.  It  is  towards  that, 
that  those  who  really  care  must  work.  Anything 
which  we  can  do  towards  persuading  into  better 
shape  our  own  deformed  characters,  compelling 
our  recalcitrant  energy  into  fresh  channels,  is  little 
in  comparison  with  what  might  be  achieved  in  the 
plastic  growing  psychic  life  of  children  did  we  ap- 
preciate our  full  opportunity  and  the  importance  of 
using  it.  This  is  why  I  propose  now  to  consider 
one  or  two  points  in  the  relation  of  education  to  tne 
spiritual  life. 

Since  it  is  always  well,  in  a  discussion  of  this  kind, 
to  be  quite  clear  about  the  content  of  the  words  with 
which  we  deal,  I  will  say  at  once,  that  by  Education 
I  mean  that  deliberate  adjustment  of  the  whole  en- 
vironment of  a  growing  creature,  which  surrounds  it 
with  the  most  favourable  influences  and  educes  all 
its  powers;  giving  it  the  most  helpful  conditions  for 

228 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     229 

its  full  growth  and  development.  Education  should 
be  the  complete  preparation  of  the  young  thing  for 
fullness  of  life;  involving  the  evolution  and  the 
balanced  training  of  all  its  faculties,  bodily,  mental 
and  spiritual.  It  should  train  and  refine  senses, 
instincts,  intellect,  will  and  feeling;  giving  a  world- 
view  based  on  real  facts  and  real  values  and  encour- 
aging active  correspondence  therewith.  Thus  the  ed- 
ucationist, if  he  be  convinced,  as  I  think  most  of  us 
must  be,  that  all  isn't  quite  right  with  the  world  of 
mankind,  has  the  priceless  opportunity  of  beginning 
the  remaking  of  humanity  from  the  right  end.  In 
the  child  he  has  a  little,  supple  thing,  which  can  be 
made  into  a  vital,  spiritual  thing;  and  nothing  again 
will  count  so  much  for  it  as  what  happens  in  these 
its  earliest  years.  To  start  life  straight  is  the  secret 
of  inward  happiness:  and  to  a-  great  extent,  the  se- 
cret of  health  and  power. 

That  conception  of  man  upon  which  we  have  been 
working,  and  which  regards  his  psychic  life  on  all  its 
levels  as  the  manifold  expressions  of  one  single  en- 
ergy or  urge  in  the  depths  of  his  being,  a  life-force 
seeking  fulfilment,  has  obvious  and  important  appli- 
cations in  the  educational  sphere.  It  indicates  that 
the  fundamental  business  of  education  is  to  deal 
with  this  urgent  and  untempered  craving,  discipline 
it,  and  direct  it  towards  interests  of  permanent  value : 
helping  it  to  establish  useful  habits,  removing  obsta- 
cles in  its  path,  blocking  the  side  channels  down  which 
it  might  run.     Especially  is  it  the  task  of  such  edu- 


230  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

cation,  gradually  to  disclose  to  the  growing  psyche 
those  spiritual  correspondences  for  which  the  reli- 
gious man  and  the  idealist  must  hold  that  man's 
spirit  was  made.  Such  an  education  as  this  has 
little  in  common  with  the  mere  crude  imparting  of 
facts.  It  represents  rather  the  careful  and  loving 
induction  of  the  growing  human  creature  into  the 
rich  world  of  experience;  the  help  we  give  it  in  the 
great  business  of  adjusting  itself  to  reality.  It 
operates  by  means  of  the  moulding  influences  of  en- 
vironment, the  creation  of  habit.  Suggestion,  not 
statement,  is  its  most  potent  instrument;  and  such 
suggestion  begins  for  good  or  ill  at  the  very  dawn 
of  consciousness.  Therefore  the  child  whose  in- 
fancy is  not  surrounded  by  persons  of  true  outlook 
is  handicapped  from  the  start;  and  the  training  in 
this  respect  of  the  parents  of  the  future  is  one  of  the 
greatest  services  we  can  render  to  the  race. 

We  are  beginning  to  learn  the  overwhelming  im- 
portance of  infantile  impressions:  how  a  forgotten 
babyish  fear  or  grief  may  develop  underground, 
and  produce  at  last  an  unrecognizable  growth  poi- 
soning the  body  and  the  mind  of  the  adult.  But 
here  good  is  at  least  as  potent  as  ill.  What  terror, 
a  hideous  sight,  an  unloving  nurture  may  do  for  evil; 
a  happy  impression,  a  beautiful  sight,  a  loving  nur- 
ture will  do  for  good.  Moreover,  we  can  bury 
good  seed  in  the  unconscious  minds  of  children  and 
reasonably  look  forward  to  the  fruit.  Babyish 
prayers,  simple  hymns,  trace  whilst  the  mind  is  due- 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     231 

tile  the  paths  in  which  feelings  shall  afterwards 
tend  to  flow;  and  it  is  only  in  maturity  that  we  real- 
ize our  psychological  debt  to  these  early  and  perhaps 
afterwards  abandoned  beliefs  and  deeds.  So  the 
veritable  education  of  the  Spirit  begins  at  once,  in 
the  cradle,  and  its  chief  means  will  be  the  surround- 
ings within  which  that  childish  spirit  first  develops 
its  little  awareness  of  the  universe ;  the  appeals  which 
are  made  to  its  instincts,  the  stimulations  of  its  life 
of  sense.  The  first  factor  of  this  education  is  the 
family:  the  second  the  society  within  which  that 
family  is  formed. 

Though  we  no  longer  suppose  it  to  possess  innate 
ideas,  the  baby  has  most  surely  innate  powers,  incli- 
nations and  curiosities,  and  is  reaching  out  in  every 
direction  towards  life.  It  is  brimming  with  will 
power,  ready  to  push  hard  into  experience.  The 
environment  in  which  it  is  placed  and  the  responses 
which  the  outer  world  makes  to  it — and  these  sur- 
roundings and  responses  in  the  long  run  are  largely 
of  our  choosing  and  making — represent  either  the 
helping  or  thwarting  of  its  tendencies,  and  the  sum 
total  of  the  directions  in  which  its  powers  can  be 
exercised  and  its  demands  satisfied:  the  possibilities, 
in  fact,  which  life  puts  before  it.  We,  as  individ- 
uals and  as  a  community,  control  and  form  part  of 
this  environment.  Under  the  first  head,  we  play  by 
influence  or  demeanour  a  certain  part  in  the  educa- 
tion of  every  child  whom  we  meet.  Under  the  sec- 
ond head,  by  acquiescence  in  the  social  order,  we  ac- 


232  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

cept  responsibility  for  the  state  of  life  in  which  it 
is  born.  The  child's  first  intimations  of  the  spirit- 
ual must  and  can  only  come  to  it  through  the  in- 
carnation of  Spirit  in  its  home  and  the  world  that 
it  knows.  What,  then,  are  we  doing  about  this? 
It  means  that  the  influences  which  shape  the  men 
and  women  of  the  future  will  be  as  wholesome  anJ 
as  spiritual  as  we  ourselves  are:  no  more,  no  less. 
Tone,  atmosphere  are  the  things  which  really  mat- 
ter; and  these  are  provided  by  the  group-mind,  and 
reflect  its  spiritual  state. 

The  child's  whole  educational  opportunity  Is  con- 
tained in  two  factors;  the  personality  it  brings  and 
the  environment  It  gets.  Generations  of  education- 
ists have  disputed  their  relative  importance:  but 
neither  party  can  deny  that  the  most  fortunate  na- 
ture, given  wrongful  or  Insufficient  nurture,  will 
hardly  emerge  unharmed.  Even  great  Inborn 
powers  atrophy  if  left  unused,  and  exceptional  abil- 
ity in  any  direction  may  easily  remain  undeveloped 
if  thef  environment  be  sufficiently  unfavourable:  a 
result  too  often  achieved  in  the  domain  of  the  spir- 
itual life.  We  must  have  opportunity  and  en- 
couragement to  try  our  powers  and  inclinations,  be 
helped  to  understand  their  nature  and  the  way  to 
use  them,  unless  we  are  to  begin  again,  each  one  of 
us,  in  the  Stone  Age  of  the  soul.  So  too,  even  small 
powers  may  be  developed  to  an  astonishing  degree 
by  suitable  surroundings  and  wise  education — wit- 
ness the  results  obtained  by  the  expert  training  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     233 

defective  children — and  all  this  is  as  applicable  to 
the  spiritual  as  to  the  mental  and  bodily  life.  That 
life  is  quick  to  respond  to  the  demands  made  on  it: 
to  take  every  opportunity  of  expression  that  comes 
its  way.  If  you  make  the  right  appeal  to  any  human 
faculty,  that  faculty  will  respond,  and  begin  to  grow. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  slow  quiet  pressure  of  tradition, 
first  in  the  home  and  then  in  the  school,  shapes  the 
child  during  his  most  malleable  years.  We,  there- 
fore, are  surely  bound  to  watch  and  criticize  the 
environment,  the  tradition,  the  customs  we  are  in- 
strumental in  providing  for  the  infant  future :  to  ask 
ourselves  whether  we  are  sure  the  tradition  is  right, 
the  conventions  we  hand  on  useful,  the  ideal  we  hold 
up  complete.  The  child,  whatever  his  powers,  can- 
not react  to  something  which  is  not  there;  he  can't 
digest  food  that  is  not  given  to  him,  use  faculties 
for  which  no  objective  is  provided.  Hence  the 
great  responsibility  of  our  generation,  as  to  pro- 
viding a  complete,  balanced  environment  nozv,  a 
fully-rounded  opportunity  of  response  to  life  physi- 
cal, mental  and  spiritual,  for  the  generation  pre- 
paring to  succeed  us.  Such  education  as  this  has 
been  called  a  preparation  for  citizenship.  But  this 
conception  is  too  narrow,  unless  the  citizenship  be 
that  of  the  City  of  God;  and  the  adjustments  in- 
volved be  those  of  the  spirit,  as  well  as  of  the  body 
and  the  mind. 

Herbert  Spencer,  whom  one  would  hardly  accuse 
of  being  a  spiritual  philosopher,  was  accustomed  to 


234  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

group  the  essentials  of  a  right  education  under  four 
heads: ^ 

First,  he  said,  we  must  teach  self-preservation  in 
all  senses :  how  to  keep  the  body  and  the  mind 
healthy  and  efficient,  how  to  be  self-supporting,  how 
to  protect  oneself  against *external  dangers  and  en- 
croachments. 

Next,  we  must  train  the  growing  creature  in  its 
duties  towards  the  life  of  the  future:  parenthood 
and  its  responsibilities,  understood  in  the  widest 
sense. 

Thirdly,  we  must  prepare  it  to  take  its  place  in 
the  present  as  a  member  of  the  social  order  into 
which  it  is  born. 

Last:  we  must  hand  on  to  it  all  those  refinements 
of  life  which  the  past  has  given  to  us — the  hoarded 
culture  of  the  race. 

Only  if  we  do  these  four  things  thoroughly  can 
we  dare  to  call  ourselves  educators  in  the  full  sense 
of  the  word. 

Now,  turning  to  the  spiritual  interests  of  the 
child: — and  unless  we  are  crass  materialists  we  must 
believe  these  interests  to  exist,  and  to  be  paramount 
— what  are  we  doing  to  further  them  in  these  four 
fundamental  directions?  First,  does  the  average 
good  education  train  our  young  people  in  spiritual 
self-preservation?  Does  it  send  them  out  equipped 
with  the  means  of  living  a  full  and  efficient  spiritual 
life?     Does   it  furnish   them  with   a   health-giving 

1  Spencer:  "Education,"   Cap.   i. 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     235 

type  of  religion;  that  is,  a  solid  hold  on  eternal  reali- 
ties, a  view  of  the  universe  capable  of  withstand- 
ing hostile  criticism,  of  supporting  them  in  times  of 
difficulty  and  of  stress?  Secondly,  does  it  give  them 
a  spiritual  outlook  in  respect  of  their  racial  duties, 
fit  them  in  due  time  to  be  parents  of  other  souls? 
Does  it  train  them  to  regard  humanity,  and  their 
own  place  in  the  human  life-stream,  from  this  point 
of  view?  This  point  is  of  special  importance,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  racial  and  biological  knowledge 
on  lower  levels  is  now  so  generally  in  the  possession 
of  boys  and  girls;  and  is  bound  to  produce  a  dis- 
torted conception  of  life,  unless  the  spirit  be  studied 
by  them  with  at  least  the  same  respectful  attention 
that  is  given  to  the  flesh.  Thirdly,  what  does  our 
education  do  towards  preparing  them  to  solve  the 
problems  of  social  and  economic  life  In  a  spiritual 
sense — our  only  reasonable  chance  of  extracting  the 
next  generation  from  the  social  muddle  in  which  we 
are  plunged  to-day?  Last,  to  what  extent  do  we 
try  to  introduce  our  pupils  into  a  full  enjoyment 
of  their  spiritual  inheritance,  the  culture  and  tradi- 
tion of  the  past? 

I  do  not  deny  that  there  are  educators — chiefly 
perhaps  educators  of  girls — who  can  give  favour- 
able answers  to  all  these  questions.  But  they  are 
exceptional,  the  proportion  of  the  child  population 
whom  they  influence  is  small,  and  frequently  their 
proceedings  are  looked  upon — not  without  some 
justice — as  eccentric.     If  then  in  all  these  depart- 


236  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ments  our  standard  type  of  education  stops  short  of 
the  spiritual  level,  are  not  we  self-convicted  as  at 
best  theoretical  believers  in  the  worth  and  destiny  of 
the  human  soul? 

Consider  the  facts.  Outside  the  walls  of  definitely 
religious  institutions — where  methods  are  not  al- 
ways adjusted  to  the  common  stuff  and  needs  of  con- 
temporary human  life — it  does  not  seem  to  occur  to 
many  educationists  to  give  the  education  of  the 
child's  soul  the  same  expert  delicate  attention  so 
lavishly  bestowed  on  the  body  and  the  intellect. 
By  expert  delicate  attention  I  do  not  mean  persis- 
tent religious  Instruction;  but  a  skilled  and  loving 
care  for  the  growing  spirit,  Inspired  by  deep  con- 
viction and  helped  by  all  the  psychological  knowl- 
edge we  possess.  If  we  look  at  the  efforts  of  or- 
ganized religion  we  are  bound  to  admit  that  in 
thousands  of  rural  parishes,  and  In  many  towns  too, 
it  is  still  possible  to  grow  from  infancy  to  old  age  as 
a  member  of  church  or  chapel  without  once  re- 
ceiving any  first-hand  teaching  on  the  powers  and 
needs  of  the  soul  or  the  technique  of  prayer;  or  ob- 
taining any  more  help  In  the  great  religious  difficul- 
ties of  adolescence  than  a  general  invitation  to  be- 
lieve, and  trust  God.  Morality — that  Is  to  say  cor- 
rectness of  response  to  our  neighbour  and  our  tem- 
poral surroundings — is  often  well  taught.  Spirit- 
uality— correctness  of  response  to  God  and  our 
eternal  surroundings — is  most  often  ignored.  A 
peculiar  British  bashfulness  seems  to  stand  in  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     237 

way  of  it.  It  Is  felt  that  we  show  better  taste  in 
leaving  the  essentials  of  the  soul's  development  to 
chance,  even  that  such  development  is  not  wholly 
desirable  or  manly:  that  the  atrophy  of  one  aspect 
of  "man's  made-trinity"  is  best.  I  have  heard  one 
eminent  ecclesiastic  maintain  that  regular  and  punc- 
tual attendance  at  morning  service  in  a  mood  of  non- 
comprehending  loyalty  was  the  best  sort  of  spiritual 
experience  for  the  average  Englishman.  Is  not 
that  a  statement  which  should  make  the  Christian 
teachers  who  are  responsible  for  the  average 
Englishman,  feel  a  little  bit  uncomfortable  about 
the  type  which  they  have  produced  ?  I  do  not  sug- 
gest that  education  should  encourage  a  feverish  re- 
ligiosity; but  that  it  ought  to  produce  balanced  men 
and  women,  whose  faculties  are  fully  alert  and  re- 
sponsive to  all  levels  of  life.  As  it  is,  we  train  Boy 
Scouts  and  Girl  Guides  in  the  principles  of  honour 
and  chivalry.  Our  Bible-classes  minister  to  the 
hungry  spirit  much  Information  about  the  journeys 
of  St.  Paul  (with  maps).  But  the  pupils  are  sel- 
dom Invited  or  assisted  to  taste,  and  see  that  the 
Lord  is  sweet. 

Now  this  indifference  means,  of  course,  that  we 
do  not  as  educators,  as  controllers  of  the  racial 
future,  really  believe  in  the  spiritual  foundations  of 
our  personality  as  thoroughly  and  practically  we  be- 
lieve in  Its  mental  and  physical  manifestations. 
Whatever  the  philosophy  or  religion  we  profess 
may  be.  It  remains  for  us  in  the  realm  of  Idea,  not 


238  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

in  the  realm  of  fact.  In  practice,  we  do  not  aim 
at  the  achievement  of  a  spiritual  type  of  conscious- 
ness as  the  crown  of  human  culture.  The  best  that 
most  education  does  for  our  children  is  only  what 
the  devil  did  for  Christ.  It  takes  them  up  to  the 
top  of  a  high  mountain  and  shows  them  all  the 
kingdoms  of  this  world;  the  kingdom  of  history, 
the  kingdom  of  letters,  the  kingdom  of  beauty,  the 
kingdom  of  science.  It  is  a  splendid  vision,  but 
unfortunately  fugitive:  and  since  the  spirit  is 
not  fugitive,  it  demands  an  objective  that  is 
permanent.  If  we  do  not  give  it  such  an  ob- 
jective, one  of  two  things  must  happen  to  it.  Either 
it  will  be  restless  and  dissatisfied,  and  throw  the 
whole  life  out  of  key;  or  it  will  become  dormant  for 
lack  of  use,  and  so  the  whole  life  will  be  impover- 
ished, its  best  promise  unfulfilled.  One  line  leads  to 
the  neurotic,  the  other  to  the  average  sensual  man, 
and  I  think  it  will  be  agreed  that  modern  life  pro- 
duces a  good  crop  of  both  these  kind  of  defectives. 
But  if  we  believe  that  the  permanent  objective 
of  the  spirit  is  God — if  He  be  indeed  for  us  the 
Fountain  of  Life  and  the  sum  of  Reality — can  we 
acquiesce  in  these  forms  of  loss?  Surely  it  ought  to 
be  our  first  aim,  to  make  the  sense  of  His  universal 
presence  and  transcendent  worth,  and  of  the  self's 
responsibility  to  Him,  dominant  for  the  plastic 
youthful  consciousness  confided  to  our  care :  to  in- 
troduce that  consciousness  into  a  world  which  is 
really  a  theocracy  and  encourage  its  aptitude   for 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     239 

generous  love?  If  educationists  do  not  view  such 
a  proposal  with  favour,  this  shows  how  miserable 
and  distorted  our  common  conception  of  God  has 
become;  and  how  small  a  part  it  really  plays  in  our 
practical  life.  Most  of  us  scramble  through  that 
practical  life,  and  are  prepared  to  let  our  children 
scramble  too,  without  any  clear  notions  of  that 
hygiene  of  the  soul  which  has  been  studied  for  cen- 
turies by  experts;  and  few  look  upon  this  branch  of 
self-knowledge  as  something  that  all  men  may  pos- 
sess who  will  submit  to  education  and  work  for  its 
achievement.  Thus  we  have  degenerated  from  the 
mediaeval  standpoint;  for  then  at  least  the  necessity 
of  spiritual  education  was  understood  and  accepted, 
and  the  current  psychology  was  in  harmony  with  it. 
But  now  there  is  little  attempt  to  deepen  and  en- 
large the  spiritual  faculties,  none  to  encourage  their 
free  and  natural  development  in  the  young,  or  their 
apphcation  to  any  richer  world  of  experience  than 
the  circle  of  pious  images  with  which  "religious 
education"  generally  deals.  The  result  of  this  is 
seen  in  the  rawness,  shallowness  and  ignorance 
which  characterize  the  attitude  of  many  young 
adults  to  religion.  Their  beliefs  and  their  scepti- 
cism alike  are  often  the  acceptance  or  rejection  of 
the  obsolete.  If  they  be  agnostics,  the  dogmas 
which  they  reject  are  frequently  theological  carica- 
tures. If  they  be  believers,  both  their  religious 
conceptions  and  their  prayers  are  found  on  inves- 
tigation still  to  be  of  an  infantile  kind,  totally  un- 


240  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

related  to  the  interests  and  outlook  of  modern  men. 
Two  facts  emerge  from  the  experience  of  all 
educationists.  The  first  is,  that  children  are 
naturally  receptive  and  responsive;  the  second,  that 
adolescents  are  naturally  idealistic.  In  both  stages, 
the  young  human  creature  is  full  of  interests  and 
curiosities  asking  to  be  satisfied,  of  energies  demand- 
ing expression;  and  here,  in  their  budding,  thrusting 
life — for  which  we,  by  our  choice  of  surroundings 
and  influence,  may  provide  the  objective — is  the 
raw  material  out  of  which  the  spiritual  humanity 
of  the  future  might  be  made.  The  child*  has  already 
within  it  the  living  seed  wherein  all  human  possibil- 
ities are  contained;  our  part  is  to  give  the  right  soil, 
the  shelter,  and  the  watering-can.  Spiritual  educa- 
tion therefore  does  not  consist  in  putting  into  the 
child  something  which  it  has  not;  but  in  educing  and 
sublimating  that  which  it  has — In  establishing  hab- 
its, fostering  a  trend  of  growth  which  shall  serve  it 
well  in  later  years.  Already,  all  the  dynamic  in- 
stincts are  present,  at  least  in  germ;  asking  for  an 
outlet.  The  will  and  the  emotions,  ductile  as  they 
will  never  be  again,  are  ready  to  make  full  and  un- 
graduated  response  to  any  genuine  appeal  to  enthu- 
siasm. The  imagination  will  accept  the  food  we 
give,  if  we  give  it  in  the  right  way.  What  an  op- 
portunity! Nowhere  else  do  we  come  into  such 
direct  contact  with  the  plastic  stuff  of  life;  never 
again  shall  we  have  at  our  disposal  such  a  fund  of 
emotional  energy. 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     241 

In  the  child's  dreams  and  fantasies,  in  its  eager 
hero-worship — later,  in  the  adolescent's  fervid 
friendships  or  devoted  loyalty  to  an  adored  leader — 
we  see  the  search  of  the  living  growing  creature  for 
more  life  and  love,  for  an  enduring  object  of  devo- 
tion. Do  we  always  manage  or  even  try  to  give 
it  that  enduring  object,  in  a  form  it  can  accept? 
Yet  the  responsibility  of  providing  such  a  presenta- 
tion of  belief  as  shall  evoke  the  spontaneous  reac- 
tions of  faith  and  love — for  no  compulsory  idealism 
ever  succeeds — is  definitely  laid  on  the  parent  and 
the  teacher.  It  is  in  the  enthusiastic  imitation  of  a 
beloved  leader  that  the  child  or  adolescent  learns 
best.  Were  the  spiritual  life  the  most  real  of  facts 
to  us,  did  we  believe  in  it  as  we  variously  believe  in 
athletics,  physical  science  or  the  arts,  surely  we 
should  spare  no  effort  to  turn  to  its  purposes  these 
priceless  qualities  of  youth?  Were  the  mind's  com- 
munion with  the  Spirit  of  God  generally  regarded 
as  its  natural  privilege  and  therefore  the  first  con- 
dition of  its  happiness  and  health,  the  general 
method  and  tone  of  modern  education  would  in- 
evitably differ  considerably  from  that  which  we 
usually  see:  and  if  the  life  of  the  Spirit  is  to  come 
to  fruition,  here  is  one  of  the  points  at  which  ref- 
ormation must  begin.  When  we  look  at  the  or- 
dinary practice  of  modern  "civilized"  Europe,  we 
cannot  claim  that  any  noticeable  proportion  of  our 
young  people  are  taught  during  their  docile  and  im- 
pressionable years  the  nature  and  discipline  of  their 


242  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

spiritual  faculties,  in  the  open  and  common-sense 
way  in  which  they  are  taught  languages,  science, 
music  or  gymnastics.  Yet  it  is  surely  a  central  duty 
of  the  educator  to  deepen  and  enrich  to  the  fullest 
extent  possible  his  pupil's  apprehension  of  the  uni- 
verse; and  must  not  all  such  apprehension  move  to- 
wards the  discovery  of  that  universe  as  a  spiritual 
fact? 

Again,  in  how  many  schools  is  the  period  of  re- 
ligious and  idealistic  enthusiasm  which  so  commonly 
occurs  In  adolescence  wisely  used,  skilfully  trained, 
and  made  the  foundation  of  an  enduring  spiritual 
life?  Here  is  the  period  in  which  the  relation  of 
master  and  pupil  is  or  may  be  most  intimate  and 
most  fruitful;  and  can  be  made  to  serve  the  highest 
interests  of  life.  Yet,  no  great  proportion  of  those 
set  apart  to  teach  young  people  seem  to  realize  and 
use  this  privilege. 

I  am  aware  that  much  which  I  am  going  to  ad- 
vocate will  sound  fantastic;  and  that  the  changes  in- 
volved may  seem  at  first  sight  impossible  to  ac- 
complish. It  is  true  that  if  these  changes  are  to  be 
useful,  they  must  be  gradual.  The  policy  of  the 
"clean  sweep"  is  one  which  both  history  and  psychol- 
ogy condemn.  But  it  does  seem  to  me  a  good  thing 
to  envisage  clearly,  if  we  can,  the  ideal  towards 
which  our  changes  should  lead.  A  garden  city  is 
not  Utopia.  Still,  it  is  an  advance  upon  the  Vic- 
torian type  of  suburb  and  slum;  and  we  should  not 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     243 

have  got  it  if  some  men  had  not  believed  In  Utopia, 
and  tried  to  make  a  beginning  here  and  now.  Al- 
ready in  education  some  few  have  tried  to  make  such 
a  beginning  and  have  proved  that  it  is  possible  if 
we  believe  in  it  enough:  for  faith  can  move  even 
that  mountainous  thing,  the  British  parental  mind. 

Our  task — and  I  believe  our  most  real  hope  for 
the  future — is,  as  we  have  already  allowed,  to  make 
the  idea  of  God  dominant  for  the  pl'astic  youthful 
consciousness:  and  not  only  this,  but  to  harmonize 
that  conception,  first  with  our  teachings  about  the 
physical  and  mental  sides  of  life,  and  next  with  the 
child's  own  social  activities,  training  body,  mind  and 
spirit  together  that  they  may  take  each  their  part  in 
the  development  of  a  whole  man,  fully  responsive 
to  a  universe  which  is  at  bottom  a  spiritual  fact. 
Such  training  to  be  complete  must,  as  we  have  seen, 
begin  in  the  nursery  and  be  given  by  the  atmos- 
phere and  opportunities  of  the  home.  It  will  in- 
clude the  instilling  of  childish  habits  of  prayer  and 
the  fostering  of  simple  expressions  of  reverence,  ad- 
miration and  love.  The  subconscious  knowledge 
implicit  in  such  practice  must  form  the  foundation, 
and  only  where  it  is  present  will  doctrine  and  prin- 
ciple have  any  real  meaning  for  the  child.  Prayer 
must  come  before  theology,  and  kindness,  tender- 
ness and  helpfulness  before  ethics. 

But  we  have  now  to  consider  the  child  of  school 
age,  coming — too  often  without  this,  the  only  ade- 


244  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

quate  preparation — into  the  teacher's  hands.  How 
is  he  to  be  dealt  with,  and  the  opportunities  which 
he  presents  used  best? 

"When  I  see  a  right  man,"  said  Jacob  Boehme, 
"there  I  see  three  worlds  standing."  Since  our  aim 
should  be  to  make  "right  men"  and  evoke  in  them 
not  merely  a  departmental  piety  but  a  robust  and  in- 
telligent spirituality,  we  ought  to  explain  in  simple 
ways  to  these  older  children  something  at  least  of 
that  view  of  human  nature  on  which  our  training  is 
based.  The  religious  instruction  given  in  most 
schools  is  divided,  in  varying  proportions,  between 
historical  or  doctrinal  teaching  and  ethical  teach- 
ing. Now  a  solid  hold  both  on  history  and  on  mor- 
als is  a  great  need;  but  these  are  only  realized  in 
their  full  importance  and  enter  completely  into  life 
when  they  are  seen  within  the  spiritual  atmosphere, 
and  already  even  in  childhood,  and  supremely  in 
youth,  this  atmosphere  can  be  evoked.  It  does  not 
seem  to  occur  to  most  teachers  that  religion  contains 
anything  beyond  or  within  the  two  departments  of 
historical  creed  and  of  morals:  that,  for  instance, 
the  greatest  utterances  of  St.  John  and  St.  Paul  deal 
with  neither,  but  with  attainable  levels  of  human 
life,  in  which  a  new  and  fuller  kind  of  experience 
was  offered  to  mankind.  Yet  surely  they  ought  at 
least  to  attempt  to  tell  their  pupils  about  this.  I 
do  not  see  how  Christians  at  any  rate  can  escape 
the  obligation,  or  shuffle  out  of  it  by  saying  that 
they  do  not  know  how  it  can  be  done.     Indeed,  all 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     215 

who  are  not  thorough-going  materialists  must  re- 
gard the  study  of  the'  spiritual  life  as  in  the  truest 
sense  a  department  of  biology;  and  any  account  of 
man  which  fails  to  describe  it,  as  incomplete. 
Where  the  science  of  the  body  is  studied,  the  science 
of  the  soul  should  be  studied  too.  Therefore,  in 
the  upper  forms  at  least,  the  psychology  of  religious 
experience  in  its  widest  sense,  as  a  normal  part  of 
all  full  human  existence,  and  the  connection  of  that 
experience  with  practical  life,  as  it  is  seen  in  history, 
should  be  taught.  If  it  is  done  properly  it  will 
hold  the  pupil's  interest,  for  it  can  be  made  to  ap- 
peal to  those  same  mental  qualities  of  wonder, 
curiosity  and  exploration  which  draw  so  many  boys 
and  girls  to  physical  science.  But  there  should  be 
no  encouragement  of  introspection,  none  of  the  false 
mystery  or  so-called  reverence  with  which  these 
subjects  are  sometimes  surrounded,  and  above  all 
no  spirit  of  exclusivism. 

The  pupil  should  be  led  to  see  his  own  religion  as 
a  part  of  the  universal  tendency  of  life  to  God. 
This  need  not  involve  any  reduction  of  the  claims 
made  on  him  by  his  own  church  or  creed ;  but  the  em- 
phasis should  always  be  on  the  likeness  rather  than 
the  differences  of  the  great  religions  of  the  world. 
Moreover,  higher  education  cannot  be  regarded  as 
complete  unless  the  mind  be  furnished  with  some 
rationale  of  its  own  deepest  experiences,  and  a  har- 
mony be  established  between  impulse  and  thought. 
Advanced  pupils  should,  then,  be  given  a  simple  and 


246  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

general  philosophy  of  religion,  plainly  stated  in 
language  which  relates  it  with  the  current  philoso- 
phy of  life.  This  is  no  counsel  of  perfection.  It 
has  been  done,  and  can  be  done  again.  It  is  said 
of  Edward  Caird,  that  he  placed  his  pupils  "from 
the  beginning  at  a  point  of  view  whence  the  life  of 
mankind  could  be  contemplated  as  one  movement, 
single  though  infinitely  varied,  unerring  though 
wandering,  significant  yet  mysterious,  secure  and 
self-enriching  although  tragical.  There  was  a  gen- 
eral sense  of  the  spiritual  nature  of  reality  and  of 
the  rule  of  mind,  though  what  was  meant  by 
spirit  or  mind  was  hardly  asked.  There  was  a  hope 
and  faith  that  outstripped  all  save  the  vaguest  under- 
standing but  which  evoked  a  glad  response  that  some- 
how God  was  immanent  in  the  world  and  in  the  his- 
tory of  all  mankind,  making  it  sane."  And  the 
effect  of  this  teaching  on  the  students  was  that  "they 
received  the  doctrine  with  enthusiasm,  and  forgot 
themselves  in  the  sense  of  their  partnership  in  a 
universal  enterprise."  ^  Such  teaching  as  this  is  a 
real  preparation  for  citizenship,  an  introduction  to 
the  enduring  values  of  the  world. 

Every  human  being,  as  we  know,  inevitably  tends 
to  emphasize  some  aspects  of  that  world,  and  to 
ignore  others:  to  build  up  for  himself  a  relative  uni- 
verse. The  choices  which  determine  the  universe 
of  maturity  are  often  made  in  youth;  then  the  foun- 

1  Jones  and  Muirhead :  "Life  and  Philosophy  of  Edward  Caird," 
pp.  64,  65. 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     247 

dations  are  laid  of  that  apperceiving  mass  which 
is  to  condition  all  the  man's  contacts  with  reality. 
We  ought,  therefore,  to  show  the  universe  to  our 
young  people  from  such  an  angle  and  in  such  a 
light,  that  they  tend  quite  simply  and  without  any 
objectionable  intensity  to  select,  emphasize  and  be 
interested  in  its  spiritual  aspect.  For  this  purpose 
we  must  never  try  to  force  our  own  reading  of  that 
universe  upon  them;  but  respect  on  the  one  hand 
their  often  extreme  sensitiveness  and  on  the  other 
the  infinitely  various  angles  of  approach  proper  to 
our  infinitely  various  souls.  We  should  place  food 
before  them  and  leave  them  to  browse.  Only  those 
who  have  tried  this  experiment  know  what  such  an 
enlargement  of  the  horizon  and  enrichment  of 
knowledge  means  to  the  eager,  adolescent  mind: 
how  prompt  is  the  response  to  any  appeal  which  we 
make  to  its  nascent  sense  of  mystery.  Yet  whole 
schools  of  thought  on  these  subjects  are  cheerfully 
ignored  by  the  majority  of  our  educationists;  hence 
the  unintelligent  and  indeed  babyish  view  of  religion 
which  is  harboured  by  many  adults,  even  of  the  in- 
tellectual class. 

Though  the  spiritual  life  has  its  roots  in  the  heart 
not  in  the  head,  and  will  never  be  brought  about  by 
merely  academic  knowledge;  yet,  its  beginnings  in 
adolescence  are  often  lost,  because  young  people  are 
completely  ignorant  of  the  meaning  of  their  own  ex- 
periences, and  the  universal  character  of  those  needs 
and  responses  which  they  dimly  feel  stirring  within 


248  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

them.  They  are  too  shy  to  ask,  and  no  one  ever 
tells  them  about  it  in  a  business-like  and  unembar- 
rassing  way.  This  infant  mortality  in  the  spiritual 
realm  ought  not  to  be  possible.  Experience  of 
God  is  the  greatest  o^  the  rights  of  man,  and  should 
not  be  left  to  become  the  casual  discovery  of  the 
few.  Therefore  prayer  ought  to  be  regarded  as  a 
universal  human  activity,  and  its  nature  and  diffi- 
culties should  be  taught,  but  always  in  the  sense  of 
intercourse  rather  than  of  mere  petition:  keeping 
in  mind  the  doctrine  of  the  mystics  that  "prayer  In 
itself  properly  is  not  else  but  a  devout  intent  di- 
rected unto  God."  ^  We  teach  concentration  for 
the  purposes  of  study;  but  too  seldom  think  of  ap- 
plying it  to  the  purposes  of  prayer.  Yet  real  prayer 
is  a  difficult  art;  which,  like  other  ways  of  approach- 
ing Perfect  Beauty,  only  discloses  its  secrets  to  those 
who  win  them  by  humble  training  and  hard  work. 
Shall  we  not  try  to  find  some  method  of  showing 
our  adolescents  their  way  into  this  world,  lying  at 
our  doors  and  offered  to  us  without  money  and  with- 
out price? 

Again,  many  teachers  and  parents  waste  the  re- 
ligious instinct  and  emotional  vigour  which  are  often 
so  marked  in  adolescence,  by  allowing  them  to  frit- 
ter themselves  upon  symbols  which  cannot  stand 
against  hostile  criticism:  for  instance,  some  of  the 
more  sentimental  and  anthropomorphic  aspects  of 
Christian  devotion.     Did  we  educate  those  instincts, 

1  "The   Cloud  of   Unknowing,"   Cap.  39. 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     249 

show  the  growing  creature  their  meaning,  and  give 
them  an  objective  which  did  not  conflict  with  the  ob- 
jectives of  the  developing  intellect  and  the  will,  we 
should  turn  their  passion  into  power,  and  lay  the 
foundations  of  a  real  spiritual  life.  We  must  re- 
member that  a  good  deal  of  adolescent  emotion  is 
diverted  by  the  conditions  of  school-life  from  its  ob- 
vious and  natural  objective.  This  is  so  much  en- 
ergy set  free  for  other  uses.  We  know  how  it 
emerges  in  hero-worship  or  in  ardent  friendships; 
how  it  reinforces  the  social  instinct  and  produces  the 
team-spirit,  the  intense  devotion  to  the  interests  of 
his  own  gang  or  group  which  is  rightly  prominent 
in  the  life  of  many  boys.  The  teacher  has  to  reckon 
with  this  funded  energy  and  enthusiasm,  and  use  it 
to  further  the  highest  interests  of  the  growing  child. 
By  this  I  do  not  mean  that  he  is  to  encourage  an 
abnormal  or  emotional  concentration  on  spiritual 
things.  Most  of  the  impulses  of  youth  are  whole- 
some, and  subserve  direct  ends.  Therefore,  it  is 
not  by  taking  away  love,  self-sacrifice,  admiration, 
curiosity,  from  their  natural  objects  that  we  shall 
serve  the  best  interests  of  spirituality:  but,  by  en- 
larging the  range  over  which  these  impulses  work 
— impulses,  indeed,  which  no  human  object  can 
wholly  satisfy,  save  in  a  sacramental  sense.  Two 
such  natural  tendencies,  specially  prominent  in  child- 
hood, are  peculiarly  at  the  disposal  of  the  religious 
teacher:  and  should  be  used  by  him  to  the  full.  It 
is  in  the  sublimation  of  the  instinct  of  comradeship 


250  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

that  the  social  and  corporate  side  of  the  spiritual 
life  takes  its  rise,  and  in  closest  connection  with  this 
impulse  that  all  works  of  charity  should  be  sug- 
gested and  performed.  And  on  the  individual  side, 
all  that  is  best,  safest  and  sweetest  in  the  religious 
instinct  of  the  child  can  be  related  to  a  similar  en- 
largement of  the  instinct  of  filial  trust  and  depen- 
dence. The  educator  is  therefore  working  within 
the  two  most  fundamental  childish  qualities,  quali- 
ties provoked  and  fostered  by  all  right  family  life, 
with  its  relation  of  love  to  parents,  brothers,  sistefrs 
and  friends;  and  may  gently  lead  out  these  two 
mighty  impulses  to  a  fulfilment  which,  at  maturity, 
embrace  God  and  the  whole  world.  The  wise 
teacher,  then,  must  work  with  the  instincts,  not 
against  them:  encouraging  all  kindly  social  feel- 
ings, all  vigorous  self-expression,  wonder,  trustful- 
ness, love.  Recognizing  the  paramount  importance 
of  emotion — for  without  emotional  colour  no  idea 
can  be  actual  to  us,  and  no  deed  thoroughly  and 
vigorously  performed — yet  he  must  always  be  on 
his  guard  against  blocking  the  natural  channels  of 
human  feeling,  and  giving  them  the  opportunity  of 
exploding  under  pious  disguises  in  the  religious 
sphere. 

Here  it  is  that  the  danger  of  too  emotional  a  type 
of  religious  training  comes  in.  Sentimentalism  of 
all  kinds  is  dangerous  and  objectionable,  especially 
in  the  education  of  girls,  whom  it  excites  and  de- 
bilitates.    Boys  are  more  often  merely  alienated  by 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     251 

it.  In  both  cases,  the  method  of  presentation  which 
regards  the  spiritual  life  simply  as  a  normal  aspect 
of  full  human  life  is  best.  No  artificial  barrier 
should  be  set  up  between  the  sacred  and  the  pro- 
fane. The  passion  for  truth  and  the  passion  for 
God  should  be  treated  as  one:  and  that  pursuit  of 
knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  those  adventurous  ex- 
plorations of  the  mind,  in  which  the  more  intelligent 
type  of  adolescent  loves  to  try  his  growing  powers, 
ought  to  be  encouraged  in  the  spiritual  sphere  as 
elsewhere.  The  results  of  research  into  religious 
origins  should  be  explained  without  reservation,  and 
no  intellectual  difficulty  should  be  dodged.  The 
putting-off  method  of  meeting  awkward  questions, 
now  generally  recognized  as  dangerous  in  matters 
of  natural  history,  is  just  as  dangerous  in  the  re- 
ligious sphere.  No  teacher  who  i%  afraid  to  state 
his  own  position  with  perfect  candour  should  ever 
be  allowed  to  undertake  this  side  of  education;  nor 
any  in  whom  there  is  a  marked  cleavage  between  the 
standard  of  conduct  and  the  standard  of  thought. 
The  healthy  adolescent  is  prompt  to  perceive  incon- 
sistency and  unsparing  in  its  condemnation. 

Moreover,  a  most  careful  discrimination  is  daily 
becoming  more  necessary,  in  the  teaching  of  tradi- 
tional religion  of  a  supernatural  and  non-empirical 
type.  Many  of  its  elements  must  no  doubt  be  re- 
tained by  us,  for  the  child-mind  demands  firm  out- 
lines and  examples  and  imagery  drawn  from  the 
world  of  sense.     Yet  grave  dangers  are  attached 


252  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

to  it.  On  the  one  hand  an  exclusive  reliance  on  tra- 
dition paves  the  way  for  the  disillusion  which  is  so 
often  experienced  towards  the  end  of  adolescence, 
when  it  frequently  causes  a  violent  reaction  to  ma- 
terialism. On  the  other  hand  it  exposes  us  to  a 
risk  which  we  particularly  want  to  avoid:  that  of 
reducing  the  child's  nascent  spiritual  life  to  the 
dream  level,  to  a  fantasy  in  which  it  satisfies  wishes 
that  outward  life  leaves  unfulfilled.  Many  pious 
people,  especially  those  who  tell  us  that  their  re- 
ligion is  a  "comfort"  to  them,  go  through  life  in  a 
spiritual  day-dream  of  this  kind.  Concrete  life  has 
starved  them  of  love,  of  beauty,  of  interest — it  has 
given  them  no  synthesis  which  satisfies  the  passion- 
ate human  search  for  meaning — and  they  have 
found  all  this  in  a  dream-world,  made  from  the 
materials  of  conventional  piety.  If  religion  is  thus 
allowed  to  become  a  ready-made  day-dream  it  will 
certainly  interest  adolescents  of  a  certain  sort.  The 
naturally  introverted  type  will  becopae  meditative; 
whilst  their  opposites,  the  extroverted  or  active 
type,  will  probably  tend  to  be  ritualistic.  But  here 
again  we  are  missing  the  essence  of  spiritual  life. 

Our  aim  should  be  to  induce,  in  a  wholesome  way, 
that  sense  of  the  spiritual  in  daily  experience  which 
the  old  writers  called  the  consciousness  of  the 
presence  of  God.  The  monastic  training -in  spirit- 
uality, slowly  evolved  under  pressure  of  experience, 
nearly  always  did  this.  It  has  bequeathed  to  us  a 
funded  wisdom  of  which  we  make  little  use:  and 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     253 

this,  reinterpreted  in  the  Hght  of  psychological 
knowledge,  might  I  believe  cast  a  great  deal  of 
light  on  the  fundamental  problems  of  spiritual  ed- 
ucation. We  could  if  we  chose  take  many  hints 
from  it,  as  regards  the  disciplining  of  the  attention, 
the  correct  use  of  suggestion,  the  teaching  of  medita- 
tion, the  sublimation  and  direction  to  an  assigned 
end  of  the  natural  impulse  to  reverie;  above  all,  the 
education  of  the  moral  life.  For  character-building 
as  understood  by  these  old  specialists  was  the  most 
practical  of  arts. 

Further,  in  all  this  teaching,  those  inward  ac- 
tivities and  responses  to  which  we  can  give  generally 
the  name  of  prayer,  and  those  outward  activities 
and  deeds  of  service  to  which  we  can  give  the  name 
of  work,  ought  to  be  trained  together  and  never 
dissociated.  They  are  the  complementary  and  bal- 
anced expressions  of  one  spirit  of  life:  and  must  be 
given  together,  under  appropriately  simple  forms. 
Concrete  application  of  the  child's  energies,  apti- 
tudes and  ideals  must  from  the  first  run  side  by 
side  with  the  teaching  of  principle.  Young  people 
therefore  should  constantly  be  encouraged  to  face 
as  practical  and  Interesting  facts,  not  as  formulas, 
those  reactions  to  eternal  and  this-world  reality 
which  used  to  be  called  our  duty  to  God  and  our 
neighbour;  and  do  concrete  things  proper  to  a  real 
citizen  of  a  really  theocratic  world.  They  must  be 
made  to  realize  that  nothing  Is  truly  ours  until  we 
have  expressed  it  In  our  deeds.     Moreover,  these 


254  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

deeds  should  not  be  easy.  They  should  involve  ef- 
fort and  self-sacrifice;  and  also  some  drudgery, 
which  is  worse.  The  spiritual  life  is  only  valued 
by  those  on  whom  it  makes  genuine  demands.  Al- 
most any  kind  of  service  will  do,  which  calls  for 
attention,  time  and  hard  work.  Though  voluntary, 
it  must  not  be  casual:  but,  once  undertaken,  should 
be  regarded  as  an  honourable  obligation.  The  Boy 
Scouts  and  Girl  Guides  have  shown  us  how  wide  a 
choice  of  possible  "good  deeds"  is  offered  by  every 
community:  and  such  a  banding  together  of  young 
people  for  corporate  acts  of  service  is  strongly  to 
be  commended.  It  encourages  unselfish  comrade- 
ship, satisfies  that  "gang-instinct"  which  is  a  well- 
known  character  of  adolescence,  and  should  leave 
no  opening  for  self-consciousness,  rivalry,  and  van- 
ity in  well-doing  or  in  abnegation. 

Wise  educators  find  that  a  combined  system  of 
organized  games  in  which  the  social  instinct  can 
be  expressed  and  developed,  and  of  independent  con- 
structive work,  in  which  the  creative  impulse  can 
find  satisfaction,  best  meets  the  corporate  and  crea- 
tive needs  of  adolescence,  favours  the  right  develop- 
ment of  character,  and  produces  a  harmonized  life. 
On  the  level  of  the  spiritual  life  too  this  principle 
is  valid;  and,  guided  by  it,  we  should  seek  to  give 
young  people  both  corporate  and  personal  work  and 
experience.  On  the  one  hand,  gregariousness  is  at 
its  strongest  in  the  healthy  adolescent,  the  force  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     255 

public  opinion  is  more  intensely  felt  than  at  any  other 
time  of  life,  that  priceless  quality  the  spirit  of  com- 
radeship is  most  easily  educed.  We  must  there- 
fore seek  to  give  the  spiritual  life  a  vigorous  cor- 
porate character;  to  make  it  "good  form"  for  the 
school,  and  to  use  the  team-spirit  in  the  choir  and 
the  guild  as  well  as  in  the  cricket  field.  By  an  ex- 
tension of  this  principle  and  under  the  influence  of  a 
suitable  teacher,  the  school-mob  may  be  transformed 
into  a  co-operative  society  animated  by  one  joyous 
and  unselfish  spirit:  all  the  great  powers  of  social 
suggestion  being  freely  used  for  the  highest  ends. 
Thus  we  may  introduce  the  pupil,  at  his  most  plastic 
age,  into  a  spiritual-social  order  and  let  him  grow 
within  it,  developing  those  qualities  and  skills  on 
which  it  makes  demands.  The  religious  exercises, 
whatever  they  are,  should  be  in  common,  in  order  to 
develop  the  mass  consciousness  of  the  school  and 
weld  it  into  a  real  group.  Music,  songs,  pro- 
cessions, etc.,  produce  a  feeling  of  unity,  and  en- 
courage spiritual  contagion.  Services  of  an  appro- 
priate kind,  if  there  be  a  chapel,  or  the  opening  of 
school  with  prayer  and  a  hymn  (which  ought  always 
to  be  followed  by  a  short  silence)  provide  a  natural 
expression  for  corporate  religious  feeling:  and  re- 
member that  to  give  a  feeling  opportunity  of  volun- 
tary expression  is  commonly  to  educe  and  affirm 
it.  As  regards  active  work,  whilst  school  chanties 
are  an  obvious  field  in  which  unselfish  energies  may 


256  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

be  spent,  many  other  openings  will  be  found  by  en- 
thusiastic teachers,  and  by  the  pupils  whom  their 
enthusiasm  has  inspired. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  spare-time  occupations 
of  the  adolescent;  the  independent  and  self-chosen 
work,  often  most  arduous  and  always  absorbing,  of 
making,  planning,  learning  about  things — and  most 
of  us  can  still  remember  how  desperately  important 
these  seemed  to  us,  whether  our  taste  was  for 
making  engines,  writing  poetry,  or  collecting  moths 
— these  are  of  the  greatest  Importance  for  his  de- 
velopment. They  give  him  something  really  his 
own,  exercise  his  powers,  train  his  attention,  feed 
his  creative  instinct.  They  counteract  those  me- 
chanical and  conventional  reactions  to  the  world, 
which  are  Induced  by  the  merely  traditional  type  of 
education,  either  of  manners  or  of  mind.  And 
here,  in  the  prudent  encouragement  of  a  personal 
interest  in  and  dealing  with  the  actual  problems  of 
conduct  and  even  of  belief — the  most  difficult  of  the 
educator's  tasks — we  guard  against  the  merely  ac- 
quiescent attitude  of  much  adult  piety,  and  foster 
from  the  beginning  a  vigorous  personal  Interest,  a 
first-hand  contact  with  higher  realities. 

The  heroic  aspect  of  history  may  well  form  the 
second  line  in  this  attempt  to  capture  education  and 
use  it  in  the  interests  of  the  spiritual  life.  By  it  we 
can  best  link  up  the  actual  and  the  ideal,  and  demon- 
strate the  single  character  of  human  greatness; 
whether  it  be  exhibited  in  the  physical  or  the  super- 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     257 

sensual  sphere.  Such  a  demonstration  Is  most  im- 
portant; for  so  long  as  the  spiritual  life  is  regarded 
as  merely  a  departmental  thing,  and  its  full  develop- 
ment as  a  matter  for  specialists  or  saints,  it  will 
never  produce  its  full  effect  In  human  affairs.  We 
must  exhibit  It  as  the  full  flower  of  that  Reality 
which  inspires  all  human  life.  "All  kinds  of  skill," 
said  Tauler,  "are  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  and  he 
might  have  said,  all  kinds  of  beauty  and  all  kinds  of 
courage  too. 

The  heroic  makes  a  direct  appeal  to  lads  and 
girls,  and  is  by  far  the  safest  way  of  approach  to 
their  emotions.  The  chivalrous,  the  noble,  the  des- 
perately brave,  attract  the  adolescent  far  more 
than  passive  goodness.  That  strong  instinct  of 
subjection,  of  homage,  which  he  shows  In  his  hero- 
worship,  is  a  most  valuable  tool  In  the  hands  of  the 
teacher  who  Is  seeking  to  lead  him  Into  greater  full- 
ness of  life.  Yet  the  range  over  which  we  seek 
material  for  his  admiration  is  often  deplorably  nar- 
row. We  have  behind  us  a  great  spiritual  history, 
which  shows  the  highest  faculties  of  the  soul  In 
action:  the  power  and  the  happiness  they  bring.  Do 
we  take  enough  notice  of  it?  What  about  our 
English  saints?  I  mean  the  real  saints,  not  the 
official  ones.  Not  St.  George  and  St.  Alban,  about 
whom  we  know  practically  nothing:  but,  for  Instance, 
Lancelot  Andrewes,  John  Wesley,  Elizabeth  Fry, 
about  whom  we  know  a  great  deal.  Children,  who 
find  difficulty  in  general  Ideas,  learn  best  from  par- 


258  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ticular  instances.  Yet  boys  and  girls  who  can  give 
a  coherent  account  of  such  stimulating  personalities 
as  Julius  Caesar,  William  the  Conqueror,  Henry 
VIII.  and  his  wives,  or  Napoleon — none  of  whom 
have  so  very  much  to  tell  us  that  bears  on  tHe  per- 
manent interests  of  the  soul — do  not  as  a  rule  pos- 
sess any  vivid  idea,  say,  of  Gautama,  St.  Benedict, 
Gregory  the  Great,  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  St.  Fran- 
cis Xavier,  George  Fox,  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  and  his 
friends:  persons  at  least  as  significant,  and  far  bet- 
ter worth  meeting,  than  the  military  commanders 
and  political  adventurers  of  their  time.  The 
stories  of  the  early  Buddhists,  the  Sufi  saints,  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  St.  Ignatius,  the  early  Quakers, 
the  African  missionaries,  are  full  of  things  which 
can  be  made  to  interest  even  a  young  child.  The 
legends  which  have  grown  up  round  some  of  them 
satisfy  the  instinct  that  draws  it  to  fairy  tales. 
They  help  it  to  dream  well;  and  give  to  the  de- 
veloping mind  food  which  it  could  assimilate  in  no 
other  way.  Older  boys  and  girls,  could  they  be 
given  some  idea  of  the  spiritual  heroes  of  Christen- 
dom as  real  men  and  women,  without  the  nauseous 
note  of  piety  which  generally  infects  their  biogra- 
phies, would  find  much  to  delight  them:  romance  of 
the  best  sort,  because  concerned  with  the  highest 
values,  and  stories  of  endurance  and  courage  such 
as  always  appeal  to  them.  These  people  were  not 
objectionable  pietists.  They  were  persons  of  full- 
est vitality  and  immense  natural  attraction;  the  pick 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     259 

of  the  race.  We  know  that,  by  the  numbers  who 
left  all  to  follow  them.  Ought  we  not  to  intro- 
duce our  pupils  to  them;  not  as  stuffed  specimens, 
but  as  vivid  human  beings?  Something  might  be 
done  to  create  the  right  atmosphere  for  this,  on  the 
lines  suggested  by  Dr.  Hayward  in  that  splendid 
little  book  "The  Lesson  in  Appreciation."  All  that 
he  says  there  about  aesthetics,  is  applicable  to  any 
lesson  dealing  with  the  higher  values  of  life.  In 
this  way,  young  people  would  be  made  to  realize  the 
spiritual  life;  not  as  something  abnormal  and  more 
or  less  conventionalized,  but  as  a  golden  thread  run- 
ning right  through  human  history,  and  making  de- 
mands on  just  those  dynamic  qualities  which  they 
feel  themselves  to  possess.  The  adolescent  is  natur- 
ally vigorous  and  combative,  and  wants,  above  all 
else,  something  worth  fighting  for.  This,  too  often, 
his  teachers  forget  to  provide. 

The  study  of  nature,  and  of  aesthetics — including 
poetry — gives  us  yet  another  way  of  approach. 
The  child  should  be  introduced  to  these  great  worlds 
of  life  and  of  beauty,  and  encouraged  but  never 
forced  to  feed  on  the  best  they  contain.  By  im- 
plication, but  never  by  any  method  savouring  of 
"uplift,"  these  subjects  should  be  related  with  that 
sense  of  the  spiritual  and  of  Its  Immanence  in  crea- 
tion, which  ought  to  Inspire  the  teacher;  and  with 
which  it  Is  his  duty  to  Infect  his  pupils  If  he  can. 
Children  may,  very  early,  be  taught  or  rather  In- 
duced to  look  at  natural  things  with  that  quietness, 


260  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

attention,  and  delight  which  are  the  beginnings  of 
contemplation,  and  the  conditions  under  which  na- 
ture reveals  her  real  secrets  to  us.  The  child  Is  a 
natural  pagan,  and  often  the  first  appeal  to  Its 
nascent  spiritual  faculty  is  best  ma^e  through  its 
instinctive  joy  in  the  life  of  animals  and  flowers, 
the  clouds  and  the  winds.  Here  It  may  learn  very 
easily  that  wonder  and  adoration,  which  are  the 
gateways  to  the  presence  of  God.  In  simple  forms 
of  verse,  music,  and  rhythmical  movement  it  can  be 
encouraged — as  the  Salvation  Army  has  discovered 
— to  give  this  happy  adoration  a  natural,  dramatic, 
and  rhythmic  expression:  for  the  young  child,  as 
we  know,  reproduces  the  mental  condition  of  the 
primitive,  and  primitive  forms  of  worship  will  suit 
it  best. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  education  of  the  type 
we  have  been  considering  demands  great  gifts  In 
the  teacher:  simplicity,  enthusiasm,  sympathy,  and 
also  a  vigorous  sense  of  humour,  keeping  him 
sharply  aware  of  the  narrow  line  that  divides  the 
priggish  from  the  Ideal.  This  education  ought  to 
inspire,  but  It  ought  not  to  replace,  the  fullest  and 
most  expert  training  of  the  body  and  mind;  for  the 
spirit  needs  a  perfectly  balanced  machine,  through 
which  to  express  its  life  in  the  physical  world.  The 
actual  additions  to  curriculum  which  it  demands 
may  be  few:  it  is  the  attitude,  the  spirit,  which  must 
be  changed.  Specifically  moral  education,  the 
building  of  character,  will   of  course   form  an   es- 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     261 

sentlal  part  of  it:  in  fact  must  be  present  within  it 
from  the  first.  But  this  comes  best  without  obser- 
vation, and  will  be  found  to  depend  chiefly  on  the 
character  of  the  teacher,  the  love,  admiration  and 
imitation  he  evokes,  the  ethical  tone  he  gives. 
Childhood  is  of  all  ages  the  one  most  open  to  sug- 
gestion, and  in  this  fact  the  educator  finds  at  once  his 
best  opportunity  and  greatest  responsibility. 

Ruysbroeck  has  described  to  us  the  three  outstand- 
ing moral  dispositions  in  respect  of  God,  of  man, 
and  of  the  conduct  of  life,  which  mark  the  true  man 
or  woman  of  the  Spirit;  and  it  is  in  the  childhood  that 
the  tendency  to  these  qualities  must  be  acquired. 
First,  he  says, — I  paraphrase,  since  the  old  terms  of 
moral  theology  are  no  longer  vivid  to  us — there 
comes  an  attitude  of  reverent  love,  of  adoration, 
towards  all  that  is  holy,  beautiful,  or  true.  And 
next,  from  this,  there  grows  up  an  attitude  towards 
other  men,  governed  by  those  qualities  which  are 
the  essence  of  courtesy:  patience,  gentleness,  kind- 
ness, and  sympathy.  These  keep  us  both  supple 
and  generous  in  our  responses  to  our  social  environ- 
ment. Last,  our  creative  energies  are  transfigured 
by  an  energetic  love,  an  inward  eagerness  for  every 
kind  of  work,  which  makes  impossible  all  slackness 
and  dullness  of  heart,  and  will  impel  us  to  live  to 
the  utmost  the  active  life  of  service  for  which  we 
are  born.^ 

But  these  moral  qualities  cannot  be  taught;  they 

1  Ruysbroeck:  "The  Adornment  of  the  Spiritual  Marriage,"  Bk. 
I,  Caps.  12-24. 


262  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

are  learned  by  imitation  and  infection,  and  devel- 
oped by  opportunity  of  action.  The  best  agent  of 
their  propagation  is  an  attractive  personality  in 
which  they  are  dominant;  for  we  know  the  universal 
tendency  of  young  people  to  imitate  those  whom 
they  admire.  The  relation  between  parent  and 
child  or  master  and  pupil  is  therefore  the  central 
factor  in  any  scheme  of  education  which  seeks  to 
further  the  spiritual  life.  Only  those  who  have 
already  become  real  can  communicate  the  knowledge 
of  Reality.  It  is  from  the  sportsman  that  we  catch 
the  spirit  of  fair-play,  from  the  humble  that  we 
learn  humility.  The  artist  shows  us  beauty,  the 
saint  shows  us  God.  It  should  therefore  be  the 
business  of  those  in  authority  to  search  out  and  give 
scope  to  those  who  possess  and  are  able  to  impart 
this  triumphing  spiritual  life.  A  head-master  who 
makes  his  boys  live  at  their  highest  level  and  act  on 
their  noblest  impulses,  because  he  does  it  himself, 
is  a  person  of  supreme  value  to  the  State.  It  would 
be  well  if  we  cleared  our  minds  of  cant,  and  acknowl- 
edged that  such  a  man  alone  is  truly  able  to  edu- 
cate; since  the  spiritual  life  is  infectious,  but  cannot 
be  propagated  by  artificial  means. 

Finally,  we  have  to  remember  that  any  attempt 
towards  the  education  of  the  spirit — and  such  an 
attempt  must  surely  be  made  by  all  who  accept 
spiritual  values  as  central  for  life — can  only  safely 
be  undertaken  with  full  knowledge  of  its  special 
dangers   and  difficulties.     These  dangers  and  diffi- 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     263 

cultles  are  connected  with  the  instinctive  and  intellec- 
tual life  of  the  child  and  the  adolescent,  who  are 
growing,  and  growing  unevenly,  during  the  whole 
period  of  training.  They  are  supple  as  regards 
other  forces  than  those  which  we  bring  to  bear  on 
them;  open  to  suggestion  from  many  different 
levels  of  life. 

Our  greatest  difficulty  abides  in  the  fact  that,  as 
we  have  seen,  a  vigorous  spiritual  life  must  give 
scope  to  the  emotions.  It  is  above  all  the  heart 
rather  than  the  mind  which  must  be  won  for  God. 
Yet,  the  greatest  care  must  be  exercised  to  ensure 
that  the  appeal  to  the  emotions  is  free  from  all  pos- 
sibility of  appeal  to  latent  and  uncomprehended 
natural  instincts.  This  peril,  to  which  current 
psychology  gives  perhaps  too  much  attention,  is 
nevertheless  real.  Candid  students  of  rehgious 
history  are  bound  to  acknowledge  the  unfortunate 
part  which  it  has  often  played  in  the  past.  These 
natural  instincts  fall  into  two  great  classes:  those 
relating  to  self-preservation  and  those  relating  to 
the  preservation  of  the  race.  The  note  of  fear,  the 
exaggerated  longing  for  shelter  and  protection,  the 
childish  attitude  of  mere  clinging  dependence, 
fostered  by  religion  of  a  certain  type,  are  all  oblique 
expressions  of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation:  and 
the  rather  feverish  devotional  moods  and  exuberant 
emotional  expressions  with  which  we  are  all  familiar 
have,  equally,  a  natural  origin.  Our  task  in  the 
training  of  young  people   is   to  evoke  enthusiasm, 


264  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

courage  and  love,  without  appealing  to  either  of 
these  sources  of  excitement.  Generally  speaking,  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  for  this  reason  all  sentimental 
and  many  anthropomorphic  religious  ideas  are  bad 
for  lads  and  girls.  These  have,  indeed,  no  part  in 
that  austere  yet  ardent  love  of  God  which  inspires 
the  real  spiritual  life. 

Our  aim  ought  to  be,  to  teach  and  impress  the  real- 
ity of  Spirit,  its  regnancy  in  human  life,  whilst  the 
mind  is  alert  and  supple :  and  so  to  teach  and  impress 
it,  that  it  is  woven  into  the  stuff  of  the  mental  and 
moral  life  and  cannot  seriously  be  injured  by  the  hos- 
tile criticisms  of  the  rationalist.  Remember,  that 
the  prime  object  of  education  is  the  moulding  of  the 
unconscious  and  instinctive  nature,  the  home  of  habit. 
If  we  can  give  this  the  desired  tendency  and  tone  of 
feeling,  we  can  trust  the  rational  mind  to  find  good 
reasons  with  which  to  reinforce  its  attitudes  and 
preferences.  So  it  is  not  so  much  the  specific  belief, 
as  the  whole  spiritual  attitude  to  existence  which 
we  seek  to  affirm;  and  this  will  be  done  on  the  whole 
more  effectively  by  the  generalized  suggestions 
which  come  to  the  pupil  from  his  own  surroundings, 
and  the  lives  of  those  whom  he  admires,  than  by  the 
limited  and  special  suggestions  of  a  creed.  It  is 
found  that  the  less  any  desired  motive  is  bound  up 
with  particular  acts,  persons,  or  ideas,  the 
greater  is  the  chance  of  its  being  universalized  anc^ 
made  good  for  life  all  round.  I  do  not  intend  by 
this  statement  to  criticize  any  particular  presentation 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  EDUCATION     265 

of  religion.  Nevertheless,  educators  ought  to  re- 
member that  a  religion  which  is  first  entirely  bound 
up  with  narrow  and  childish  theological  ideas,  and 
is  then  presented  as  true  in  the  absolute  sense,  is 
bound  to  break  down  under  greater  knowledge  or 
hostile  criticism ;  and  may  then  involve  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  religious  impulse  as  a  whole,  at  least  for 
a  long  period. 

Did  we  know  our  business,  we  ought  surely  to  be 
able  to  ensure  in  our  young  people  a  steady  and  har- 
monious spiritual  growth.  The  "conversion"  or 
psychic  convulsion*  which  is  sometimes  regarded  as 
an  essential  preliminary  of  any  vivid  awakening  of 
the  spiritual  consciousness,  is  really  a  tribute  exacted 
by  our  wrong  educational  methods.  It  is  a  proof 
that  we  have  allowed  the  plastic  creature  confided  to 
us  to  harden  in  the  wrong  shape.  But  if,  side  by  side 
and  in  simplest  language,  we  teach  the  conceptions : 
first,  of  God  as  the  transcendent  yet  indwelling  Spirit 
of  love,  of  beauty  and  of  power;  next,  of  man's  con- 
stant dependence  on  Him  and  possible  contact  with 
His  nature  in  that  arduous  and  loving  act  of  atten- 
tion which  is  the  essence  of  prayer;  last,  of  unselfish 
work  and  fellowship  as  the  necessary  expressions  of 
all  human  ideals — then,  I  think,  we  may  hope  to 
lay  the  foundations  of  a  balanced  and  a  wholesome 
life,  in  which  man's  various  faculties  work  together 
for  good,  and  his  vigorous  instinctive  life  is  directed 
to  the  highest  ends. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   LIFE   OF   THE    SPIRIT  AND  THE    SOCIAL 
ORDER 

We  have  come  to  the  last  chapter  of  this  book; 
and  I  am  conscious  that  those  who  have  had  the 
patience  to  follow  its  argument  from  the  beginning, 
may  now  feel  a  certain  sense  of  incompleteness. 
They  will  observe  that,  though  many  things  have 
been  said  about  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  not  a  great 
deal  seems  to  have  been  said,  at  any  rate  directly, 
about  the  second  half  of  the  title — the  life  of  to-day 
— and  especially  about  those  very  important  aspects 
of  our  modern  active  life  which  are  resumed  in  the 
word  Social.  This  avoidance  has  been,  at  least  in 
part,  Intentional.  We  have  witnessed  in  this  century 
a  violent  revulsion  from  the  individualistic  type 
of  religion;  a  revulsion  which  parallels  upon  its  own 
levels,  and  indeed  is  a  part  of,  the  revolt  from  Vic- 
torian Individualism  in  political  and  economic  life. 
Those  who  come  much  into  contact  with  students, 
and  with  the  younger  and  more  vigorous  clergy,  are 
aware  how  far  this  revolt  has  proceeded:  how  com- 
pletely, in  the  minds  of  those  young  people  who  are 
interested  in  religion,  the  Social  Gospel  now  over- 
powers all  other  aspects  of  the  spiritual  life.     Again 

266 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    267 

and  again  we  are  assured  by  the  most  earnest  among 
them  that  in  their  view  religion  is  a  social  activity, 
and  service  is  its  proper  expression:  that  all  valid 
knowledge  of  God  is  social,  and  He  is  chiefly  known 
in  mankind:  that  the  use  of  prayer  is  mainly  social, 
in  that  it  improves  us  for  service,  otherwise  it  must 
be  condemned  as  a  merely  selfish  activity:  finally, 
that  the  true  meaning  and  value  of  suffering  are  so- 
cial too.  A  visitor  to  a  recent  Swanwick  Conference 
of  the  Student  Christian  Movement  has  publicly 
expressed  his  regret  that  some  students  still  seemed 
to  be  concerned  with  the  problems  of  thir  own  spir- 
itual life;  and  were  not  prepared  to  let  that  look 
after  itself,  whilst  they  started  straight  off  to  work 
for  the  social  realization  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
When  a  great  truth  becomes  exaggerated  to  this 
extent,  and  is  held  to  the  exclusion  of  its  compen- 
sating opposite,  it  is  in  a  fair  way  to  becoming  a  He. 
And  we  have  here,  I  think,  a  real  confusion  of  ideas 
which  will,  if  allowed  to  continue,  react  unfavourably 
upon  the  religion  of  the  future;  because  It  gives 
away  the  most  sacred  conviction  of  the  idealist,  the 
belief  In  the  absolute  character  of  spiritual  values, 
and  in  the  effort  to  win  them  as  the  great  activity 
of  man.  Social  service,  since  it  Is  one  form  of  such 
an  effort,  a  bringing  In  of  more  order,  beauty,  joy, 
is  a  fundamental  duty — the  fundamental  duty — of 
the  active  life.  Man  does  not  truly  love  the  Perfect 
until  he  Is  driven  thus  to  seek  Its  incarnation  in  the 
world  of  time.     No  one  doubts  this.     All  spiritual 


268  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

teachers  have  said  it,  in  one  way  or  another,  for 
centuries.  The  mere  fact  that  they  feel  impelled  to 
teach  at  all,  instead  of  saying  "My  secret  to  myself" 
— which  is  so  much  easier  and  pleasanter  to  the 
natural  contemplative — is  a  guarantee  of  the  claim 
to  service  which  they  feel  that  love  lays  upon  them. 
But  this  does  not  make  such  service  of  man,  however 
devoted,  either  the  same  thing  as  the  search  for, 
response  to,  intercourse  with  God;  or,  a  sufficient 
substitute  for  these  specifically  spiritual  acts. 

Plainly,  we  are  called  upon  to  strive  with  all  our 
power  to  bring  in  the  Kingdom;  that  is,  to  incarnate 
in  the  time  world  the  highest  spiritual  values  which 
we  have  known.  But  our  ability  to  do  this  is  strictly 
dependent  on  those  values  being  known,  at  least  by 
some  of  us,  at  first-hand;  and  for  this  first-hand  per- 
ception, as  we  have  seen,  the  soul  must  have  a  mea- 
sure of  solitude  and  silence.  Therefore,  if  the 
swing-over  to  a  purely  social  interpretation  of  reli- 
gion be  allowed  to  continue  unchecked,  the  result 
can  only  be  an  impoverishment  of  our  spiritual  life; 
quite  as  far-reaching  and  as  regrettable  as  that  which 
follows  from  an  unbridled  individualism.  Without 
the  inner  life  of  prayer  and  meditation,  lived  for 
its  own  sake  and  for  no  utilitarian  motive,  neither 
our  judgments  upon  the  social  order  nor  our  active 
social  service  will  be  perfectly  performed;  because 
they  will  not  be  the  channel  of  Creative  Spirit  ex- 
pressing itself  through  us  in  the  world  of  to-day. 

Christ,  it  is  true,  gives  nobody  any  encouragement 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    269 

for  supposing  that  a  merely  self-cultivating  sort  of 
spirituality,  keeping  the  home  fires  burning  and  so 
on,  is  anybody's  main  job.  The  main  job  confided 
to  His  friends  is  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.  That 
is,  spreading  Reality,  teaching  it,  inserting  it  into 
existence;  by  prayers,  words,  acts,  and  also  if  need 
be  by  manual  work,  and  always  under  the  conditions 
and  symbolisms  of  our  contemporary  world.  But 
since  we  can  only  give  others  that  which  we  already 
possess,  this  presupposes  that  we  have  got  some- 
thing of  Reality  as  a  living,  burning  fire  in  ourselves. 
The  soul's  two  activities  of  reception  and  donation 
must  be  held  in  balance,  or  impotence  and  unreality 
will  result.  It  is  only  out  of  the  heart  of  his  own 
experience  that  man  really  helps  his  neighbour:  and 
thus  there  is  an  ultimate  social  value  in  the  most 
secret  responses  of  the  soul  to  grace.  No  one,  for 
instance,  can  help  others  to  repentance  who  has  not 
known  it  at  first-hand.  Therefore  we  have  to  keep 
the  home  fires  burning,  because  they  are  the  fires 
which  raise  the  steam  that  does  the  work:  and  we 
do  this  mostly  by  the  fuel  with  which  we  feed  them, 
though  partly  too  by  giving  free  access  to  currents 
of  fresh  air  from  the  outer  world. 

We  cannot  read  St.  Paul's  letters  with  sympathy 
and  escape  the  conviction  that  in  the  midst  of  his 
great  missionary  efforts  he  was  profoundly  con- 
cerned too  with  the  problems  of  his  own  inner  life. 
The  little  bits  of  self-revelation  that  break  into  the 
epistles  and,  threaded  together,  show  us  the  curve 


270  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

of  his  growth,  also  show  us  how  much  lay  behind 
them,  how  intense  and  how  exacting  was  the  inward 
travail  that  accompanied  his  outward  deeds.  Here 
he  is  representative  of  the  true  apostolic  type.  It 
is  because  St.  Augustine  is  the  man  of  the  "Con- 
fessions" that  he  is  also  the  creator  of  "The  City 
of  God."  The  regenerative  work  of  St.  Francis  was 
accompanied  by  an  unremitting  life  of  penitence  and 
recollection.  Fox  and  Wesley,  abounding  in  la- 
bours, yet  never  relaxed  the  tension  of  their  soul's 
effort  to  correspond  with  a  transcendent  Reality. 
These  and  many  other  examples  warn  us  that  only 
by  such  a  sustained  and  double  movement  can  the 
man  of  the  Spirit  actualize  all  his  possibilities  and 
do  his  real  work.  He  must,  says  Ruysbroeck,  "both 
ascend  and  descend  with  love."  ^  On  any  other 
basis  he  misses  the  richness  of  that  fully  integrated 
human  existence  "swinging  between  the  unseen  and 
the  seen"  in  which  the  social  and  individual,  incor- 
porated and  solitary  responses  to  the  demands  oT 
Spirit  are  fully  carried  through.  Instead,  he  ex- 
hibits restriction  and  lack  of  balance.  This  in  the 
end  must  react  as  unfavourably  on  the  social  as  on 
the  personal  side  of  life:  since  the  place  and  in- 
fluence of  the  spiritual  life  in  the  social  order  will 
depend  entirely  on  its  place  in  the  individual  con- 
sciousness of  which  that  social  order  will  be  built, 
the  extent  in  which  loyalty  to  the  one  Spirit  governs 
their  reactions  to  common  daily  experience. 

1  "The   Mirror   of   Eternal   Salvation,"   Cap.   7, 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    271 

Here  then,  as  in  so  much  else,  the  ideal  is  not  an 
arbitrary  choice  but  a  struck  balance.  First,  a  per- 
sonal contact  with  Eternal  Reality,  deepening,  il- 
luminating and  enlarging  all  of  our  experience  of 
fact,  all  our  responses  to  it:  that  is,  faith.  Next, 
the  fullest  possible  sense  of  our  membership  of  and 
duty  towards  the  social  organism,  a  completely  rich, 
various,  heroic,  self-giving,  social  life:  that  is,  char- 
ity. The  dissociation  of  these  two  sides  of  human 
experience  is  fatal  to  that  divine  hope  which  should 
crown  and  unite  them;  and  which  represents  the 
human  instinct  for  novelty  in  a  sublimated  form. 

It  is  of  course  true  that  social  groups  may  be  re- 
generated. The  success  of  such  group-formations 
as  the  primitive  Franciscans,  the  Friends  of  God, 
the  Quakers,  the  Salvation  Army,  demonstrates  this. 
But  groups,  in  the  last  resort,  consist  of  individuals, 
who  must  each  be  regenerated  one  by  one;  whose 
outlook,  if  they  are  to  be  whole  men,  must  include 
in  its  span  abiding  values  as  well  as  the  stream  of 
time,  and  who,  for  the  full  development  of  this 
their  two-fold  destiny,  require  each  a  measure  both 
of  solitude  and  of  association.  Hence  it  follows, 
that  the  final  answer  to  the  repeated  question: 
"Does  God  save  men,  does  Spirit  work  towards  the 
regeneration  of  humanity  (the  same  thing),  one  by 
one,  or  in  groups?"  is  this:  that  the  proposed  alter- 
native is  illusory.  We  cannot  say  that  the  Divine 
action  in  the  world  as  we  know  it,  is  either  merely 
social   or   merely   individual;   but   both.     And   the 


272  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

next  question — a  highly  practical  question — Is, 
"How  both?"  For  the  answer  to  this,  If  we  can 
find  it,  will  give  us  at  last  a  formula  by  which  we  can 
true  up  our  own  effort  toward  completeness  of 
self-expression  in  the  here-and-now. 

How,  then,  are  groups  of  men  moved  up  to 
higher  spiritual  levels;  helped  to  such  an  actual  pos- 
session of  power  and  love  and  a  sound  mind  as  shall 
transfigure  and  perfect  their  lives?  For  this,  more 
than  all  else,  is  what  we  now  want  to  achieve.  I 
speak  in  generalities,  and  of  average  human  nature, 
not  of  these  specially  sensitive  or  gifted  individuals 
who  are  themselves  the  revealers  of  Reality  to  their 
fellow-men. 

History  suggests,  I  think,  that  this  group-regen- 
eration is  effected  in  the  last  resort  through  a  special 
sublimation  of  the  herd-Instinct;  that  is,  the  full  and 
willing  use  on  spiritual  levels  of  the  characters 
which  are  inherent  in  human  gregarlousness.^  We 
have  looked  at  some  of  these  characters  in  past 
chapters.  Our  study  of  them  suggests  that  the  first 
stage  in  any  social  regeneration  Is  likely  to  be 
brought  about  by  the  instinctive  rallying  of  individ- 
uals about  a  natural  leader,  strong  enough  to  com- 
pel and  direct  them;  and  whose  appeal  is  to  the  im- 
pulsive life,  to  an  acknowledged  or  unacknowledged 
lack  or  craving,  not  to  the  faculty  of  deliberate 
choice.     This  leader,  then,  must  offer  new  life  and 

lA  good  general  discussion  in  Tansley:  "The  New  Psychology 
and  its  Relation  to  Life,"  Caps.  19,  20. 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    273 

love,  not  intellectual  solutions.  He  must  be  able 
to  share  with  his  flock  his  own  ardour  and  appre- 
hension of  Reality;  and  evoke  from  them  the  pro- 
found human  impulse  to  imitation.  They  will 
catch  his  enthusiasm,  and  thus  receive  the  sugges- 
tions of  his  teaching  and  of  his  life.  This  first 
stage,  supremely  illustrated  in  the  disciples  of 
Christ,  and  again  in  the  groups  who  gathered  round 
such  men  as  St.  Francis,  Fox,  or  Booth,  Is  re-expe- 
rienced in  a  lesser  way  in  every  successful  revival: 
and  each  genuine  restoration  of  the  life  of  Spirit, 
whether  its  declared  aim  be  social  or  religious,  has 
a  certain  revivallstic  character.  We  must  there- 
fore keep  an  eye  on  these  principles  of  disclpleship 
and  contagion,  as  likely  to  govern  any  future  splr- 
ituallzatlon  of  our  own  social  life;  looking  for  the 
beginnings  of  true  reconstruction,  not  to  the  general 
dissemination  of  suitable  doctrines,  but  to  the  living 
burning  influence  of  an  ardent  soul.  And  I  may 
add  here,  as  the  corollary  of  this  conclusion,  first 
that  the  evoking  and  fostering  of  such  ardour  is  In 
itself  a  piece  of  social  service  of  the  highest  value, 
and  next  that  it  makes  every  Individual  socially  re- 
sponsible for  the  due  sharing  of  even  the  small 
measure  of  ardour,  certitude  or  power  he  or  she 
has  received.  We  are  to  be  conductors  of  the 
Divine  energy;  not  to  insulate  it.  There  Is  of 
course  nothing  new  in  all  this:  but  there  is  nothing 
new  fundamentally  In  the  spiritual  life,  save  In  St. 
Augustine's  sense  of  the  eternal  youth  and  fresh- 


274  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ness  of  all  beauty.^  The  only  novelty  which  we 
can  safely  introduce  will  be  in  the  terms  in  which  we 
describe  it;  the  perpetual  new  exhibition  of  it  within 
the  time-world,  the  fresh  and  various  applica- 
tions which  we  can  give  to  Its  abiding  laws,  in  the 
special  circumstances  and  opportunities  of  our  own 
day. 

But  the  influence  of  the  crowd-compeller,  the 
leader,  whether  in  the  crude  form  of  the  revivalist 
or  in  the  more  penetrating  and  enduring  form  of 
the  creative  mystic  or  religious  founder,  the  loyalty 
and  imitation  of  the  disciple,  the  corporate  and  gen- 
eralized enthusiasm  of  the  group  can  only  be  the 
first  educative  phase  in  any  veritable  incarnation  ot 
Spirit  upon  earth.  Each  member  of  the  herd  is 
now  committed  to  the  fullest  personal  living-out  of 
the  new  life  he  has  received.  Only  in  so  far  as  the 
first  stage  of  suggestion  and  imitation  is  carried 
over  to  the  next  stage  of  personal  actualization, 
can  we  say  that  there  is  any  real  promotion  of  spir- 
itual life:  any  hope  that  this  life  will  work  a  true 
renovation  of  the  group  into  which  it  has  been  in- 
serted and  achieve  the  social  phase. 

If,  then,  it  does  achieve  the  social  phase  what 
stages  may  we  expect  it  to  pass  through,  and  by 
what  special  characters  will  it  be  graced? 

Let  us  look  back  for  a  moment  at  some  of  our 
conclusions  about  the  individual  life.  We  said  that 
this  life,  if  fully  lived,  exhibited  the  four  characters 

lAug.  Conf.,  Bk.  X,  Cap.  27. 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    275 

of  work  and  contemplation,  self-discipline  and  serv- 
ice :  deepening  and  incarnating  within  its  own  vari- 
ous this-world  experience  its  other-world  apprehen- 
sions of  Eternity,  of  God.  Its  temper  should  thus 
be  both  social  and  ascetic.  It  should  be  doubly 
based,  on  humility  and  on  given  power.  Now  the 
social  order — more  exactly,  the  social  organism — 
in  which  Spirit  is  really  to  triumph,  can  only  be 
built  up  of  individuals  who  do  with  a  greater  or  less 
perfection  and  intensity  exhibit  these  char'acters, 
some  upon  independent  levels  of  creative  freedom, 
some  on  those  of  discipleship:  for  here  all  men  are 
not  equal,  and  it  is  humbug  to  pretend  that  they  are. 
This  social  order,  being  so  built  of  regenerate  units, 
would  be  dominated  by  these  same  impllclts  of  the 
regenerate  consciousness;  and  would  tend  to  solve 
in  their  light  the  special  problems  of  community 
life.  And  this  unity  of  aim  would  really  make  of 
it  one  body;  the  body  of  a  fully  socialized  and  fully 
spiritualized  humanity,  which  perhaps  we  might 
without  presumption  describe  as  indeed  the  son 
of  God. 

The  life  of  such  a  social  organism,  its  growth,  its 
cycle  of  corporate  behaviour,  would  be  strung  on 
that  same  fourfold  cord  which  combined  the  desires 
and  deeds  of  the  regenerate  self  into  a  series: 
namely,  Penitence,  Surrender,  Recollection,  and 
Work.  It  would  be  actuated  first  by  a  real  social 
repentance.  That  is,  by  a  turning  from  that  con- 
stant capitulation  to  its  past,  to  animal  and  savage 


276  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

Impulse,  the  power  of  which  our  generation  at  least 
knows  only  too  well ;  and  by  the  complementary  ef- 
fort to  unify  vigorous  instinctive  action  and  social 
conscience.  I  think  every  one  can  find  for  them- 
selves some  sphere,  national,  racial,  industrial, 
financial,  in  which  social  penitence  could  work;  and 
the  constant  corporate  fall-back  into  sin,  which  we 
now  disguise  as  human  nature,  or  sometimes — even 
more  Insincerely — as  economic  and  political  neces- 
sity, might  be  faced  and  called  by  its  true  name. 
Such  a  social  penitence — such  a  corporate  realiza- 
tion of  the  mess  that  we  have  made  of  things — Is 
as  much  a  direct  movement  of  the  Spirit,  and  as 
great  an  essential  of  regeneration,  as  any  Individual 
movement  of  the  broken  and  contrite  heart. 

Could  a  quick  social  conscience,  aware  of  obli- 
gations to  Reality  which  do  not  end  with  making  this 
world  a  comfortable  place — though  we  have  not 
even  managed  that  for  the  majority  of  men — feel 
quite  at  ease,  say,  after  an  unflinching  survey  of  our 
present  system  of  State  punishment?  Or  after 
reading  the  unvarnished  record  of  our  dealings  with 
the  problem  of  Indian  immigration  into  Africa? 
Or  after  considering  the  Inner  nature  of  interna- 
tional diplomacy  and  finance?  Or  even,  to  come 
nearer  home,  after  a  stroll  through  Hoxton:  the 
sort  of  place,  it  is  true,  which  we  have  not  exactly 
made  on  purpose  but  which  has  made  itself  be- 
cause we  have  not,  as  a  community,  exercised  our 
undoubted  powers  of  choice  and  action  In  an  in- 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    277 

telligent  and  loving  way.  Can  we  justify  the 
peculiar  characteristics  of  Hoxton:  congratulate 
ourselves  on  the  amount  of  light,  air  and  beauty 
which  Its  Inhabitants  enjoy,  the  sort  of  children  that 
are  reared  In  It,  as  the  best  we  can  do  towards  fur- 
thering the  racial  aim?  It  Is  a  monument  of  stupid- 
ity no  less  than  of  meanness.  Yet  the  conception 
of  God  which  the  whole  religious  experience  of 
growing  man  presses  on  us,  suggests  that  both  In- 
telligence and  love  ought  to  characterize  His  ideal 
for  human  life.  Look  then  at  these,  and  all  the 
other  things  of  the  same  kind.  Look  at  our  at- 
titude towards  prostitution,  at  the  drink  traffic,  at 
the  ugliness  and  Injustice  of  the  many  Institutions 
which  we  allow  to  endure.  Look  at  them  in  the 
Universal  Spirit;  and  the»:  consider,  whether  a 
searching  corporate  repentance  is  not  really  the  in- 
evitable preliminary  of  a  social  and  spiritual  ad- 
vance. All  these  things  have  happened  because  we 
have  as  a  body  consistently  fallen  below  our  best 
possible,  lacked  courage  to  incarnate  our  vision  In 
the  political  sphere.  Instead,  we  have,  acted  on 
the  crowd  level,  swayed  by  unsublimated  Instincts  of 
acquisition,  disguised  lust,  self-preservation,  self- 
assertion,  and  Ignoble  fear:  and  such  a  fall-back  Is 
the  very  essence  of  social  sin. 

We  have  made  many  plans  and  elevations;  but 
we  have  not  really  tried  to  build  Jerusalem  either 
in  our  own  hearts  or  in  "England's  pleasant  land." 
Blake  thought  that  the  preliminary  of  such  a  build- 


278  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ing  up  of  the  harmonious  social  order  must  be  the 
building  up  or  harmonizing  of  men,  of  each  man; 
and  when  this  essential  work  was  really  done, 
Heaven's  "Countenance  Divine"  would  suddenly  de- 
clare itself  "among  the  dark  Satanic  mills."  ^  What 
was  wrong  with  man,  and  ultimately  therefore  with 
society,  was  the  cleavage  between  his  "Spectre"  or 
energetic  intelligence,  and  "Emanation'^  or  loving 
imagination.  Divided,  they  only  tormented  one 
another.  United,  they  were  the  material  of  divine 
humanity.  Now  the  complementary  affirmative 
movement  which  shall  balance  and  complete  true 
social  penitence  will  be  just  such  a  unification  and 
dedication  of  society's  best  energies  and  noblest 
ideals,  now  commonly  separated.  The  Spectre  is 
attending  to  economics:  the  Emanation  is  dreaminiT 
of  Utopia.  We  want  to  see  them  united,  for  from 
this  union  alone  will  come  the  social  aspect  for  sur- 
render. That  is  to  say,  a  single-minded,  unselfish 
yielding  to  those  good  social  impulses  which  we  all 
feel  from  time  to  time,  and  might  take  more  se- 
riously did  we;  realize  them  as  the  Impulsions  of  holy 
and  creative  Spirit  pressing  us  towards  novelty, 
giving  us  our  chance;  our  small  actualization  of  the 
universal  tendency  to  the  Divine.  As  it  is,  we  do 
feel  a  little  uncomfortable  when  these  stirrings 
reach  us;  but  commonly  console  ourselves  with  the 
thought  that  their  realization  is  at  present  outside 
the   sphere   of  practical  politics.     Yet   the   obliga- 

1  Blake:    "Jerusalem." 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    279 

tion  of  response  to  those  stirrings  is  laid  on  all  who 
feel  them;  and  unless  some  will  first  make  this 
venture  of  faith,  our  possible  future  will  never  be 
achieved.  Christ  was  born  among  those  who  ex- 
pected the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  favouring  atmos- 
phere of  His  childhood  is  suggested  by  these  words. 
It  is  our  business  to  prepare,  so  far  as  we  may,  a 
favourable  atmosphere  and  environment  for  the 
children  who  will  make  the  future :  and  this  environ- 
ment is  not  anything  mysterious,  it  is  simply  our- 
selves. The  men  and  women  who  are  now  coming 
to  maturity,  still  supple  to  experience  and  capable 
of  enthusiastic  and  disinterested  choice — that  is,  of 
surrender  in  the  noblest  sense — will  have  great  op- 
portunities of  influencing  those  who  are  younger 
than  themselves.  The  torch  is  being  offered  to 
them;  and  it  is  of  vital  importance  to  the  unborn 
future  that  they  should  grasp  and  hand  it  on,  with- 
out worrying  about  whether  their  fingers  are  going 
to  be  burnt.  If  they  do  grasp  it,  they  may  prove 
to  be  the  bringers  in  of  a  new  world,  a  fresh  and 
vigorous  social  order,  which  is  based  upon  true 
values,  controlled  by  a  spiritual  conception  of  life; 
a  world  in  which  this  factor  is  as  freely  acknowl- 
edged by  all  normal  persons,  as  is  the  movement  of 
the  earth  round  the  sun. 

I  do  not  speak  here  of  fantastic  dreams  about 
Utopias,  or  of  the  coloured  pictures  of  the  apoca- 
lyptic imagination;  but  of  a  concrete  genuine  pos- 
sibility, at  which  clear-sighted  persons  have  hinted 


280  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

again  and  again.  Consider  our  racial  past.  Look 
at  the  Piltdown  slcuU:  reconstruct  the  person  or 
creature  whose  brain  that  skull  contained,  and 
actualize  the  directions  in  which  his  imperious  in- 
stincts, his  vaguely  conscious  will  and  desire,  were 
pressing  into  life.  They  too  were  expressions  of 
Creative  Spirit;  and  there  is  perfect  continuity  be- 
tween his  vital  impulse  and  our  own.  Now,  con- 
sider one  of  the  better  achievements  of  civilization; 
say  the  life  of  a  University,  with  its  devotion  to  dis- 
interested learning,  its  conservation  of  old  beauty 
and  quest  of  new  truth.  Even  if  we  take  its  lowest 
common  measure,  the  transfiguration  of  desire  is 
considerable.  Yet  in  the  things  of  the  Spirit  we 
must  surely  acknowledge  ourselves  still  to  be  prim- 
itive men;  and  no  one  can  say  that  it  yet  appears 
what  we  shall  be.  All  really  depends  on  the  direc- 
tion in  which  human  society  decides  to  push  into 
experience,  the  surrender  which  it  makes  to  the  im- 
pulsion of  the  Spirit;  how  its  tendency  to  novelty 
is  employed,  the  sort  of  complex  habits  which  are 
formed  by  it,  as  more  and  more  crude  social  instinct 
is  lifted  up  into  conscious  intention,  and  given 
the  precision  of  thought. 

In  our  regenerate  society,  then,  If  we  ever  get  it, 
the  balanced  moods  of  Repentance  of  our  racial 
past  and  Surrender  to  our  spiritual  calling,  the  pull- 
forward  of  the  Spirit  of  Life  even  in  its  most  aus- 
tere and  difficult  demands,  will  control  us;  as  being 
the  socialized  extensions  of  these  same  attitudes  of 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    281 

the  individual  soul.  And  they  will  press  the  com- 
munity to  those  same  balanced  expressions  of  its 
instinct  for  reality,  which  completed  the  individual 
life:  that  is  to  say,  to  Recollection  and  Work.  In 
the  furnishing  of  a  frame  for  the  regular  social  ex- 
ercise of  recollection — the  gathering  in  of  the  cor- 
porate mind  and  its  direction  to  eternal  values,  the 
abiding  foundations  of  existence;  the  consideration 
of  all  its  problems  in  silence  and  peace;  the  dra- 
matic and  sacramental  expression  of  its  unity  and  of 
its  dependence  on  the  higher  powers  of  life — in  all 
this,  the  institutional  religion  of  the  future  will  per- 
haps find  its  true  sphere  of  action,  and  take  its 
rightful  place  in  the  socialized  life  of  the  Spirit. 

Finally,  the  work  which  is  done  by  a  community 
of  which  the  inner  life  is  controlled  by  these  three 
factors  will  be  the  concrete  expression  of  these 
factors  in  the  time-world;  and  will  perpetuate  and 
hand  on  all  that  is  noble,  stable  and  reasonable  in 
human  discovery  and  tradition,  whether  in  the 
sphere  of  conduct,  of  thought,  of  creation,  of  man- 
ual labour,  or  the  control  of  nature,  whilst  remain- 
ing supple  ♦owards  the  demands  and  gifts  of  novelty. 
New  value  will  be  given  to  craftsmanship  and  a 
sense  of  dedication — now  almost  unknown — to 
those  who  direct  it.  Consider  the  effect  of  this  at- 
titude on  worker,  trader,  designer,  employer:  how 
many  questions  would  then  answer  themselves,  how 
many  sore  places  would  be  healed. 

It  is  not  necessary,  in  order  to  take  sides  with 


282  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

this  possible  new  order  and  work  for  it,  that  we 
should  commit  ourselves  to  any  one  party  or 
scheme  of  social  reform.  Still  less  is  it  necessary 
to  suppose  such  reform  the  only  field  in  which  the 
active  and  social  side  of  the  spiritual  life  is  to  be 
lived.  Repentance,  surrender,  recollection  and  in- 
dustry can  do  their  transfiguring  work  in  art,  science, 
craftsmanship,  scholarship,  and  play:  making  all 
these  things  more  representative  of  reality,  nearer 
our  own  best  possible,  and  so  more  vivid  and  worth 
while.  If  Tauler  was  right,  and  all  kinds  of  skill 
are  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost — a  proposition  which 
no  thorough-going  theist  can  refuse — then  will  not 
a  reference  back  on  the  part  of  the  worker  to  that 
fontal  source  of  power  make  for  humility  and  per- 
fection in  all  work?  Personally  I  am  not  at  all 
afraid  to  recognize  a  spiritual  element  in  all  good 
craftsmanship,  in  the  delighted  and  diligent  crea- 
tion of  the  fine  potter,  smith  or  carpenter,  in  the 
well-tended  garden  and  beehive,  the  perfectly  ad- 
justed home;  for  do  not  all  these  help  the  explica- 
tion of  the  one  Spirit  of  Life  in  the  diversity  of  His 
gifts? 

The  full  life  of  the  Spirit  must  be  more  rich  and 
various  in  its  expression  than  any  life  that  we  have 
yet  known,  and  find  place  for  every  worthy  and  de- 
lightful activity.  It  does  not  in  the  least  mean  a 
bloodless  goodness;  a  refusal  of  fun  and  everlast- 
ing fuss  about  uplift.  But  it  does  mean  looking  at 
and  judging  each  problem  in  a  particular  light,  and 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    283 

acting  on  that  judgment  without  fear.  Were  this 
principle  established,  and  society  poised  on  this 
centre,  reforms  would  follow  its  application  almost 
automatically;  specific  evils  would  retreat.  New 
knowledge  of  beauty  would  reveal  the  ugliness  of 
many  satisfactions  which  we  now  offer  to  ourselves, 
and  new  love  the  defective  character  of  many  of  our 
social  relations.  Certain  things  would  therefore 
leave  off  happening,  would  go;  because  the  direction 
of  desire  had  changed.  I  do  not  wish  to  particular- 
ize, for  this  only  means  blurring  the  issue  by  putting 
forward  one's  own  pet  reforms.  But  I  cannot  help 
pointing  out  that  we  shall  never  get  spiritual  values 
out  of  a  society  harried  and  tormented  by  economic 
pressure,  or  men  and  women  whose  whole  atten- 
tion is  given  up  to  the  daily  task  of  keeping  alive. 
This  is  not  a  political  statement:  it  is  a  plain  fact 
that  we  must  face.  Though  the  courageous  Fives 
of  the  poor,  their  patient  endurance  of  insecurity 
may  reveal  a  nobility  that  shames  us,  it  still  re- 
mains true  that  these  lives  do  not  represent  the 
most  favourable  conditions  of  the  soul.  It 
is  not  poverty  that  matters;  but  strain  and  the  pres- 
ence of  anxiety  and  fear,  the  impossibility  of  detach- 
ment. Therefore  this  oppression  at  least  would 
have  to  be  lightened,  before  the  social  conscience 
could  be  at  ease.  Moreover  as  society  advances 
along  this  way,  every — even  the  most  subtle — kind 
of  cruelty  and  exploitation  of  self-advantage  ob- 
tained to  the  detriment  of  other  individuals,  must 


2j84  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

tend  to  be  eliminated:  because  here  the  drag-back  of 
the  past  will  be  more  and  more  completely  con- 
quered, its  instincts  fully  sublimated,  and  no  one 
will  care  to  do  those  things  any  more.  Bringing 
new  feelings  and  more  real  concepts  to  our  contact 
with  our  environment,  we  shall,  in  accordance  with 
the  law  of  apperception,  see  this  environment  in  a 
different  way;  and  so  obtain  from  it  a  fresh  series 
of  experiences.  The  scale  of  pain  and  pleasure 
will  be  altered.  We  shall  feel  a  searching  respon- 
sibility about  the  way  in  which  our  money  is  made, 
and  about  any  disadvantages  to  others  which  our 
amusements  or  comforts  may  involve. 

Here,  perhaps,  it  is  well  to  register  a  protest 
against  the  curious  but  prevalent  notion  that  any  such 
concentrated  effort  for  the  spiritualization  of  society 
must  tend  to  work,  itself  out  in  the  direction  of  a 
maudlin  humanitarianism,  a  soft  and  sentimental 
reading  of  life.  This  idea  merely  advertises  once 
more  the  fact  that  we  still  have  a  very  mean  and 
imperfect  conception  of  God,  and  have  made  the 
mistake  of  setting  up  a  water-tight  bulkhead  be- 
tween His  revelation  in  nature  and  His  discovery 
in  the  life  of  prayer.  It  shows  a  failure  to  appre- 
ciate the  stern,  heroic  aspect  of  Reality;  the  ele- 
ment of  austerity  in  all  genuine  religion,  the  distinc- 
tion between  love  and  sentlmentalism,  the  rightful 
place  of  risk,  effort,  even  suffering,  in  all  full  achieve- 
ment and  all  joy.  If  we  are  surrendered  in  love  to 
the  purposes  of  the  Spirit,  we  are  committed  to  the 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    285 

bringing  out  of  the  best  possible  in  life;  and  this  is  a 
hard  business,  involving  a  quite  definite  social 
struggle  with  evil  and  atavism,  in  which  some  one 
is  likely  to  be  hurt.  But  surely  that  manly  spirit 
of  adventure  which  has  driven  men  to  the  North 
Pole  and  the  desert,  and  made  them  battle  with 
delight  against  apparently  impossible  odds,  can 
here  find  its  appropriate  sublimation? 

If  anyone  who  has  followed  these  arguments,  and 
now  desires  to  bring  them  from  idea  into  practice, 
asks:  "What  next?"  the  answer  simply  is — Begin. 
Begin  with  ourselves;  and  if  possible,  do  not  begin 
in  solitude.  "The  basal  principles  of  all  collective 
life,"  says  McDougall,  "are  sympathetic  contagion, 
mass  suggestion,  imitation" :  ^  and  again  and  again 
the  history  of  spiritual  experience  illustrates  this 
law,  that  its  propagation  is  most  often  by  way  of 
discipleship  and  the  corporate  life,  not  by  the  in- 
tensive culture  of  purely  solitary  effort.  It  is  for 
those  who  believe  in  the  spiritual  life  to  take  full 
advantage  now  of  this  social  suggestibility  of  man ; 
though  without  any  detraction  from  the  prime  im- 
portance of  the  personal  spiritual  life.  Therefore, 
join  up  with  somebody,  find  fellowship;  whether  it 
be  in  a  church  or  society,  or  among  a  few  like- 
minded  friends.  Draw  together  for  mutual  sup- 
port, and  face  those  imperatives  of  prayer  and  work 
which  we  have  seen  to  be  the  condition  of  the  fullest 
living-out  of  our  existence.     Fix  and  keep  a  reason- 

1  "Social   Psycholog}',"    Cap.    i. 


286  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ably  balanced  daily  rule.  Accept  leadership  where 
you  find  it — give  it,  if  you  feel  the  impulse  and  the 
strength.  Do  not  wait  for  some  grand  opportunity, 
and  whilst  you  are  waiting  stiffen  in  the  wrong 
shape.  The  great  opportunity  may  not  be  for  us, 
but  for  the  generation  whose  path  we  now  prepare: 
and  we  do  our  best  towards  such  preparation,  if  we 
begin  in  a  small  and  humble  way  the  incorporation 
of  our  hopes  and  desires  as  for  instance  Wesley 
and  the  Oxford  Methodists  did.  They  sought 
merely  to  put  their  own  deeply  felt  ideas  into  action, 
quite  simply  and  without  fuss;  and  we  know  how 
far  the  resulting  impulse  spread.  The  Bab  move- 
ment in  the  East,  the  Salvation  Army  at  home,  show 
us  this  principle  still  operative;  what  a  "little  flock" 
dominated  by  a  suitable  herd-leader  and  swayed  by 
love  and  adoration  can  do — and  these,  like  Chris- 
tianity itself,  began  as  small  and  inconspicuous 
groups.  It  may  be  that  our  hope  for  the  future 
depends  on  the  formation  of  such  groups — hives  of 
the  Spirit — in  which  the  worker  of  every  grade,  the 
thinker,  the  artist,  might  each  have  their  place:  ob- 
taining from  incorporation  the  herd-advantages  of 
mutual  protection  and  unity  of  aim,  and  forming 
nuclei  to  which  others  could  adhere. 

Such  a  small  group — and  I  am  now  thinking  of 
something  quite  practical,  say  to  begin  with  a  study- 
circle,  or  a  company  of  like-minded  friends  with  a 
definite  rule  of  life — may  not  seem  to  the  outward 
eye  very  impressive.      Regarded  as  a  unit,  it  will 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER   287 

even  tend  to  be  Inferior  to  Its  best  members:  but  it 
will  be  superior  to  the  weakest,  and  with  Its  leader 
will  possess  a  dynamic  character  and  reproductive 
power  which  he  could  never  have  exhibited  alone. 
It  should  form  a  compact  organization,  both  fer- 
vent and  business-like;  and  might  take  as  its  Ideal  a 
combination  of  the  characteristic  temper  of  the  con- 
templative order,  with  that  of  active  and  intelligent 
Christianity  as  seen  In  the  best  type  of  social  settle- 
ment. This  double  character  of  Inwardness  and 
practicality  seems  to  me  to  be  essential  to-  Its  suc- 
cess; and  incorporation  will  certainly  help  It  to  be 
maintained.  The  rule  should  be  simple  and  unos- 
tentatious, and  need  Indeed  be  little  more  than  the 
"heavenly  rule"  of  faith,  hope,  and  charity.  This 
will  Involve  first  the  realization  of  man's  true  life 
within  a  spiritual  world-order,  his  utter  dependence 
upon  Its  realities  and  powers  of  communion  with 
them;  next  his  Infinite  possibilities  of  recovery  and 
advancement;  last  his  duty  of  love  to  all  other  selves 
and  things.  This  triple  law  would  be  applied  with- 
out shirking  to  every  problem  of  existence;  and  the 
corporate  spirit  would  be  encouraged  by  meetings, 
by  associated  prayer,  and  specially  I  hope  by  the 
practice  of  corporate  silence.  Such  a  group  would 
never  permit  the  Intrusion  of  the  controversial  ele- 
ment, but  would  be  based  on  mutual  trust;  and  the 
fact  that  all  the  members  shared  substantially  the 
same  view  of  human  life,  strove  though  in  dFffering 
ways  for  the  same  ideals,  were  filled  by  the  same 


288  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

enthusiasms,  would  allow  the  problems  and  ex- 
periences of  the  Spirit  to  be  accepted  as  real,  and 
discussed  with  frankness  and  simplicity.  Thus 
oases  of  prayer  and  clear  thinking  might  be  created 
in  our  social  wilderness,  gradually  developing  such 
power  and  group-consciousness  as  we  see  in  really 
living  religious  bodies.  The  group  would  probably 
make  some  definite  piece  of  social  work,  or  some 
definite  question,  specially  its  own.  Seeking  to 
judge  the  problem  this  presented  in  the  Universal 
Spirit,  it  would  work  towards  a  solution,  using  for 
this  purpose  both  heart  and  head.  It  would  strive 
in  regard  to  the  special  province  chosen  and  solu- 
tion reached  to  make  its  weight  felt,  either  locally 
or  nationally,  in  a  way  the  individual  could  never 
hope  to  do;  and  might  reasonably  hope  that  its 
conclusions  and  its  actions  would  exceed  in  balance 
and  sanity  those  which  any  one  of  the  members  could 
have  achieved  alone. 

I  think  that  these  groups  would  develop  their 
own  discipline,  not  borrow  its  details  from  the  past: 
for  they  would  soon  find  that  some  drill  was  neces- 
sary to  them,  and  that  luxury,  idleness,  self-indul- 
gence and  indifference  to  the  common  good  were  in 
conflict  with  the  inner  spirit  of  the  herd.  They 
would  inevitably  come  to  practise  that  sane  asceti- 
cism, not  incompatible  with  gaiety  of  heart,  which 
consists  in  concentration  on  the  real,  and  quiet 
avoidance  of  the  attractive  sham.  Plainness  and 
simplicity  do  help  the  spiritual  life,  and  these  are 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    289 

more  easy  and  wholesome  when  practised  in  com- 
mon than  when  they  are  displayed  by  individuals 
in  defiance  of  the  social  order  that  surrounds  them. 
The  differences  of  temperament  and  of  spiritual 
level  in  the  group  members  would  prevent  mo- 
notony; and  insure  that  variety  of  reaction  to  the 
life  of  the  Spirit  which  we  so  much  wish  to  preserve. 
Those  whose  chief  gift  was  for  action  would  thus 
be  directly  supported  by  those  natural  contem- 
platives  who  might,  if  they  remained  in  solitude, 
find  it  difficult  to  make  their  special  gift  serve  their 
fellows  as  it  must.  Group-consciousness  would 
cause  the  spreading  and  equalization  of  that  spirit- 
ual sensitiveness  which  Is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  very 
unequally  distributed  amongst  men.  And  in  the 
backing  up  of  the  predominantly  active  workers  by 
the  organized  prayerful  will  of  the  group,  all  the 
real  values  of  intercession  would  be  obtained :  for 
this  has  really  nothing  to  do  with  trying  to  persuade 
God  to  do  specific  acts,  it  is  a  particular  way  of  ex- 
erting love,  and  thus  of  reaching  and  using  spirit- 
ual power. 

This  incorporation,  as  I  see  it,  would  be  made 
for  the  express  purpose  of  getting  driving  force  with 
which  to  act  directly  upon  life.  For  spirituality, 
as  we  have  seen  all  along,  must  not  be  a  lovely  fluid 
notion  or  a  merely  self-regarding  education;  but 
an  education  for  action,  for  the  Insertion  of  eternal 
values  into  the  time-world,  in  conformity  with  the 
incarnational   philosophy   which   justifies   it.     Such 


290  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

action — such  insertion — depends  on  constant  re- 
course to  the  sources  of  spiritual  power.  At  pres- 
ent we  tend  to  starve  our  possible  centres  of  re- 
generation, or  let  them  starve  themselves,  by  our 
encouragement  of  the  active  at  the  expense  of  the 
contemplative  life;  and  till  this  is  mended,  we  shall 
get  nothing  really  done.  Forgetting  St.  Teresa's 
warning,  that  to  give  our  Lord  a  perfect  service, 
Martha  and  Mary  must  combine,^  we  represent  the 
service  of  man  as  being  itself  an  attention  to  God; 
and  thus  drain  our  best  workers  of  their  energies, 
and  leave  them  no  leisure  for  taking  in  fresh  sup- 
plies. Often  they  are  wearied  and  confused  by  the 
multiplicity  in  which  they  must  struggle;  and  they 
are  not  taught  and  encouraged  to  seek  the  healing 
experience  of  unity.  Hence  even  our  noblest  teach- 
ers often  show  painful  signs  of  spiritual  exhaus- 
tion, and  tend  to  relapse  into  the  formal  repetition 
of  a  message  which  was  once  a  burning  fire. 

The  continued  force  of  any  regenerative  move- 
ment depends  above  all  else  on  continued  vivid  con- 
tact with  the  Divine  order,  for  the  problems  of  the 
reformer  are  only  really  understood  and  seen  in 
true  proportion  in  its  light.  Such  contact  is  not 
always  easy:  it  is  a  form  of  work.  After  a  time 
the  weary  and  discouraged  will  need  the  support  of 
discipline  if  they  are  to  do  it.  Therefore  some 
definite  rule  of  silence  and  withdrawal — perhaps  an 
extension  of  that  system  of  periodical  retreats  which 

1  "The  Interior  Castle":  Seventh  Habitation,  Cap.  IV. 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    291 

is  one  of  the  most  hopeful  features  of  contempo- 
rary religious  life — is  essential  to  any  group-scheme 
for  the  general  and  social  furtherance  of  the  spirit- 
ual life.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  for  a  moment,  that 
countless  good  men  and  women  who  love  the  world 
in  the  divine  and  not  in  the  self-regarding  sense, 
are  busy  all  their  lives  long  in  forwarding  the  pur- 
poses of  the  Spirit:  which  is  acting  through  them, 
as  truly  as  through  the  conscious  prophets  and  re- 
generators of  the  race.  But,  to  return  for  a  mo- 
ment to  psychological  language,  whilst  the  Divine 
impulsion  remains  for  us  below  the  threshold^  it  is 
not  doing  all  that  it  could  for  us  nor  we  all  that  we 
could  do  for  it;  for  we  are  not  completely  unified. 
Wc  can  by  appropriate  education  bring  up  that  im- 
perative yet  dim  impulsion  to  conscious  realization, 
and  wittingly  dedicate  to  its  uses  our  heart,  mind 
and  will;  and  such  realization  in  its  most  perfect 
form  appears  to  be  the  psychological  equivalent  of 
the  state  which  is  described  by  spiritual  writers,  in 
their  own  special  language,  as  "union  with  God." 

I  have  been  at  some  pains  to  avoid  the  use  of 
this  special  language  of  the  mystics;  but  now  per- 
haps we  may  remind  ourselves  that,  by  the  declara- 
tion of  all  who  have  achieved  it,  the  mature  spirit- 
ual life  is  such  a  condition  of  completed  harmony 
— such  a  theopathetic  state.  Therefore  here  to- 
day, in  the  worst  confusions  of  our  social  scramble, 
no  less  that  in  the  Indian  forest  or  the  mediaeval 
cloister,  man's  really  religious  method  and  self-ex- 


292  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

presslon  must  be  harmonious  with  a  life-process  of 
which  this  is  the  recognized  if  distant  goal:  and  in 
all  the  work  of  restatement,  this  abiding  objective 
must  be  kept  in  view.  Such  union,  such  full  identi- 
fication with  the  Divine  purpose,  must  be  a  social  as 
well  as  an  individual  expression  of  full  life.  It  can- 
not be  satisfied  by  the  mere  picking  out  of  crumbs 
of  perfection  from  the  welter,  but  must  mean  in 
the  end  that  the  real  interests  of  society  are  Indenti- 
cal  with  the  interests  of  Creative  Spirit,  in  so  far 
as  these  are  felt  and  known  by  man;  the  interests, 
that  is,  of  a  love  that  is  energy  and  an  energy  that 
is  love.  Towards  this  identification  the  willed  ten- 
dency of  each  truly  awakened  individual  must  stead- 
fastly be  set;  and  also  the  corporate  desire  of  each 
group,  as  expressed  in  its  prayer  and  work.  For 
the  whole  secret  of  life  lies  in  directed  desire. 

A  wide-spreading  love  to  all  in  common,  says 
Ruysbroeck  in  a  celebrated  passage,  is  the  authen- 
tic mark  of  a  truly  spiritual  man.^  In  this  phrase 
is  concealed  the  link  between  the  social  and  personal 
aspects  of  the  spiritual  life.  It  means  that  our  pas- 
sional nature  with  its  cravings  and  ardours,  instead 
of  making  self-centred  whirlpools,  flows  out  in 
streams  of  charity  and  power  towards  all  life.  And 
we  observe  too  that  the  Ninth  Perfection  of  the 
Buddhist  is  such  a  state  of  active  charity.  "In  his 
loving,  sympathizing,  joyful  and  steadfast  mind  he 
will  recognize  himself  in  all  things,  and  will  shed 

1  "The  Adornment  of  the  Spiritual  Marriage,"  Bk.  II,  Cap.  44. 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    293 

warmth  and  light  on  the  world  In  all  directions  out 
of  his  great,  deep,  unbounded  heart."  ^ 

Let  this,  then,  be  the  teleologlcal  objective  on 
which  the  will  and  the  desire  of  Individual  and  group 
are  set:  and  let  us  ask  what  It  Involves,  and  how  it 
Is  achieved.  It  Involves  all  the  ardour,  tenderness 
and  Idealism  of  the  lover,  spent  not  on  one  chosen 
object  but  on  all  living  things.  Thus  It  means  an 
Immense  widening  of  the  arc  of  human  sympathy; 
and  this  It  Is  not  possible  to  do  properly,  unless  we 
have  found  the  centre  of  the  circle  first.  The  glar- 
ing defect  of  current  religion — I  mean  the  vigorous 
kind,  not  the  kind  that  Is  responsible  for  empty 
churches — Is  that  It  spends  so  much  time  In  running 
round  the  arc,  and  rather  takes  the  centre  for 
granted.  We  see  a  great  deal  of  love  In  generous- 
minded  people,  but  also  a  good  many  gaps  in  it 
which  reference  to  the  centre  might  help  us  to  find 
and  to  mend.  Some  Christian  people  seem  to  have 
a  difficulty  about  loving  reactionaries,  and  some 
about  loving  revolutionaries.  And  in  institutional 
religion  there  are  people  of  real  ardour,  called  by 
those  beautiful  names  Catholic  and  Evangelical,  who 
do  not  seem  able  to  see  each  other  In  the  light  of  this 
wide-spreading  love.  Yet  they  would  meet  at  the 
centre.  And  it  is  at  the  centre  that  the  real  life  of 
the  Spirit  alms  first;  thence  flowing  out  to  the  cir- 
cumference— even  to  its  most  harsh,  dark,  difficult 

1  Warren:  "Buddhism  in  Translations,"  p.  28. 


294  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

and  rugged  limits — in  unbroken  streams  of  "gener- 
ous love. 

Such  love  Is  creative.  It  does  not  flow  along  the 
easy  paths,  spending  Itself  on  the  attractive.  It 
cuts  new  channels,  goes  where  it  Is  needed,  and  has 
as  Its  special  vocation — a  vocation  Identical  with 
that  of  the  great  artist — the  "loving  of  the  unlovely 
into  lovableness."  Thus  does  it  participate  accord- 
ing to  its  measure  In  the  work  of  Divine  incarnation. 
This  does  not  mean  a  maudlin  optimism,  or  any  other 
kind  of  sentimentality;  for  as  we  delve  more  deeply 
into  life,  we  always  leave  sentimentality  behind. 
But  it  does  mean  a  love  which  is  based  on  a  deep 
understanding  of  man's  slow  struggles  and  of  the  un- 
equal movements  of  life,  and  is  expressed  In  both 
arduous  and  highly  skillful  actions.  It  means  taking 
the  grimy,  degraded,  misshapen,  and  trying  to  get 
them  right;  because  we  feel  that  essentially  they 
can  be  right.  And  further,  of  course,  it  means  get- 
ting behind  them  to  the  conditions  that  control  their 
wrongness;  and  getting  these  right  if  we  can.  Con- 
sider what  human  society  would  be  If  each  of  Its 
members — not  merely  occasional  philanthropists, 
idealists  or  saints,  but  financiers,  politicians,  traders, 
employers,  employed — had  this  quality  of  spread- 
ing a  creative  love:  If  the  whole  impulse  of  life  In 
every  man  and  woman  were  towards  such  a  har- 
mony, first  with  God,  and  then  with  all  other  things 
and  souls.  There  is  nothing  unnatural  in  this  con- 
ception.    It  only  means  that  our  vital  energy  would 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    295 

flow  In  Its  real  channel  at  last.  Where  then  would 
be  our  most  heart-searching  social  problems?  The 
social  order  then  would  really  be  an  order;  tallying 
with  St.  Augustine's  definition  of  a  virtuous  life  as 
the  ordering  of  love. 

What  about  the  master  and  the  worker  in  such 
a  possibly  regenerated  social  order?  Consider 
alone  the  immense  release  of  energy  for  work  need- 
ing to  be  done,  if  the  civil  wars  of  civilized  man 
could  cease  and  be  replaced  by  that  other  mental 
fight,  for  the  upbuilding  of  Jerusalem:  how  the  im- 
pulse of  Creative  Spirit,  surely  working  In  humanity, 
would  find  the  way  made  clear.  Would  not  this,  at 
last,  actualize  the  Pauline  dream,  of  each  single 
citizen  as  a  member  of  the  Body  of  Christ?  It  Is 
because  we  are  not  thus  attuned  to  life,  and  sur- 
rendered to  It,  that  our  social  confusion  arises;  the 
conflict  of  impulse  within  society  simply  mirrors  the 
conflict  of  Impulse  within  each  individual  mind. 

We  know  that  some  of  the  greatest  movements 
of  history,  veritable  transformations  of  the  group- 
mind,  can  be  traced  back  to  a  tiny  beginning  in  the 
faithful  spiritual  experience  and  response  of  some 
one  man,  his  contact  with  the  centre  which  started 
the  ripples  of  creative  love.  If,  then,  we  could  ele- 
vate such  universalized  individuals  into  the  position 
of  herd-leaders,  spread  their  secret,  persuade  society 
first  to  imitate  them,  and  then  to  share  their  point 
of  view,  the  real  and  sane,  because  love-impelled 
social  revolution  might  begin.     It  will  begin,  when 


296  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

more  and  ever  more  people  find  themselves  unable 
to  participate  in,  or  reap  advantage  from,  the 
things  which  conflict  with  love :  when  tender  emo- 
tion in  man  is  so  universalized,  that  it  controls  the 
instincts  of  acquisitiveness  and  of  self-assertion. 
There  are  already  for  each  of  us  some  things  in 
which  we  cannot  participate,  because  they  conflict 
too  flagrantly  with  some  aspect  of  our  love,  either 
for  truth,  or  for  justice,  or  for  humanity,  or  for 
God:  and  these  things  each  individual,  according  to 
his  own  level  of  realization,  is  bound  to  oppose  with- 
out compromise.  Most  of  us  have  enough  wide- 
spreading  love  to  be — for  instance — quite  free  from 
temptation  to  be  cruel,  at  any  rate  directly,  to  chil- 
dren or  to  animals.  I  say  nothing  about  the  in- 
direct tortures  which  our  sloth  and  insensitiveness 
still  permit.  Were  these  first  flickers  made  ardent, 
and  did  they  control  all  our  reactions  to  life — and 
there  is  nothing  abnormal,  no  break  in  continuity 
involved  in  this,  only  a  reasonable  growth — then, 
new  paths  of  social  discharge  would  have  been  made 
for  our  chief  desires  and  impulses;  and  along  these 
they  would  tend  more  and  more  to  flow  freely  and 
easily,  establishing  new  social  habits,  unhampered 
by  solicitations  from  our  savage  past.  To  us  al- 
ready, on  the  whole,  these  solicitations  are  less  in- 
sistent than  they  were  to  the  men  of  earlier  cen- 
turies. We  see  their  gradual  defeat  in  slave  eman- 
cipation, factory  acts,  increased  religious  tolerance, 
every  movement   towards   social   justice,   every   in- 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    297 

crease  of  the  arc  over  which  our  obligations  to 
other  men  obtain.  They  must  now  disguise  them- 
selves as  patriotic  or  economic  necessities,  if  we 
are  to  listen  to  them:  as,  in  the  Freudian  dream, 
our  hidden  unworthy  wishes  slip  through  into  con- 
sciousness in  a  symbolic  form.  But  when  their 
energy  has  been  fully  sublimated,  the  social  action 
will  no  longer  be  a  conflict  but  a  harmony.  Then 
we  shall  live  the  life  of  Spirit;  and  from  this  life 
will  flow  all  love-inspired  reform. 

Yet  we  are,  above  all,  to  avoid  the  conclusion 
that  the  spiritual  life,  in  its  social  expression,  shall 
necessarily  push  us  towards  mere  change;  that 
novelty  contains  everything,  and  stability  nothing, 
of  the  will  of  the  Spirit  for  the  race.  Surely  our 
aim  shall  be  this:  that  religious  sensitiveness  shall 
spread,  as  our  discovery  of  religion  in  the  universe 
spreads,  so  that  at  last  every  man's  reaction  to  the 
whole  of  experience  shall  be  entlnctured  with  Real- 
ity, coloured  by  this  dominant  feeling-tone.  Spirit 
would  then  work  from  within  outwards,  and  all  life 
personal  and  social,  mental  and  physical,  would  be 
moulded  by  Its  inspiring  power.  And  in  looking 
here  for  our  best  hope  of  development,  we  remain 
safely  within  history;  and  do  not  strive  for  any 
desperate  pulling  down  or  false  simplification  of  our 
complex  existence,  such  as  has  wrecked  many  at- 
tempts to  spiritualize  society  In  the  past. 

Consider  the  way  by  which  we  have  come.  We 
found  in  man  an  instinct  for  a  spiritual  Reality.     A 


298  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

single,  concrete,  objective  Fact,  transcending  yet  in- 
forming his  universe,  compels  his  adoration,  and  is 
apperceived  by  him  In  three  main  ways.  First,  as 
the  very  Being,  Heart  and  Meaning  of  that  universe, 
the  universal  of  all  unlversals,  next  as  a  Presence  in- 
cluding and  exceeding  the  best  that  personality  can 
mean  to  him,  last  as  an  indwelling  and  energizing 
Life.  We  saw  in  history  the  persistent  emergence 
of  a  human  type  so  fully  aware  of  this  Reality  as 
to  subdue  to  Its  Interests  all  the  activities  of  life; 
ever  seeking  to  incarnate  Its  abiding  values  in  the 
world  of  time.  And  further,  psychology  suggested 
to  us,  even  In  Its  tentative  new  findings,  Its  explora- 
tion of  our  strange  mental  deeps,  reason  for  hold- 
ing such  surrender  to  the  purposes  of  the  Spirit  to 
represent  the  condition  of  man's  fullest  psychic 
health,  and  access  to  his  real  sources  of  power.  We 
found  In  the  universal  existence  of  religious  institu- 
tions further  evidence  of  this  profound  human  need 
of  spirituality.  We  saw  there  the  often  sharp  and 
sky-piercing  intensity  of  the  individual  aptitude  for 
Reality  enveloped,  tempered  and  made  wholesome  by 
the  social  influences  of  the  cultus  and  the  group: 
made,  too,  available  for  the  community  by  the  sym- 
bolisms that  cultus  had  preserved.  So  that  gradually 
the  life  of  the  Spirit  emerged  for  us  as  something 
most  actual,  not  archaic:  a  perennial  possibility  of 
newness,  of  regeneration,  a  widening  of  our  span  of 
pain  and  joy.  A  human  fact,  completing  and  most 
closely  linked  with   those   other  human   facts,   the 


LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER    299 

vocation  to  service,  to  beauty,  to  truth.  A  fact, 
then,  which  must  control  our  view  of  personal  self- 
discipline,  of  education,  and  of  social  effort:  since 
it  refers  to  the  abiding  Reality  which  alone  gives  all 
these  their  meaning  and  worth,  and  which  man, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  must  pursue. 

And  last,  if  we  ask.  as  a  summing  up  of  the  whole 
matter:  Why  man  is  thus  to  seek  the  Eternal, 
through,  behind  and  within  the  ever-fleeting?  The 
answer  is  that  he  cannot,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  help 
doing  it  sooner  or  later:  for  his  heart  is  never  at 
rest,  till  it  finds  itself  there.  But  he  often  wastes 
a  great  deal  of  time  before  he  realizes  this.  And 
perhaps  we  may  find  the  reason  why  man — each  man 
— is  thus  pressed  towards  some  measure  of  union 
with  Reality,  in  the  fact  that  his  conscious  will  thus 
only  becomes  an  agent  of  the  veritable  purposes  of 
life:  of  that  Power  which,  in  and  through  mankind, 
conserves  and  slowly  presses  towards  realization  the 
noblest  aspirations  of  each  soul.  This  power  and 
push  we  may  call  if  we  like  in  the  language  of  realism 
the  tendency  of  our  space-time  universe  towards 
deity;  or  in  the  language  of  religion,  the  working 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  And  since,  so  far  as  we  know, 
it  is  only  in  man  that  life  becomes  self-conscious, 
and  ever  more  and  more  self-conscious,  with  the 
deepening  and  widening  of  his  love  and  his  thought; 
so  it  is  only  in  man  that  it  can  dedicate  the  will  and 
desire  which  are  life's  central  qualities  to  the  further- 
ance of  this  Divine  creative  aim. 


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W.  M.  McGovem.  An  Introduction  to  Mahayana  Bud- 
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Mechthild  of  Magdeburg.  Das  Fliessende  Licht  der  Gott- 
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INDEX 


Abreaction,   109 

Abri  Said,   16 

Adolescence,  240  seq. 

Alexander,  S.  26 

Angela  of  Foligno,  Blessed, 

99,  130 
Apperception,   179,  284 
Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  26,  58, 

200 
Asceticism,  69,  89,  288 
Augustine,    St.,    8,    13,    27, 

60,  198,  202,  208,  270, 

273,  295 

Autistic  thought,  112,  117, 
seq. 

Auto  Suggestion  see  Sug- 
gestion 

Baudouin,  C,  144,  173 
Benedict,    St.    48,    64,    seq., 

68,  210 
Benedictine   Order,    52,   61, 

64,  seq. 
Bernard,   St.   52 
Bhakti  Marga,  18,  21 
Bible- reading,    212 
Blake,  W.,    11,  33,  46,  71, 

277 
Bolhme,   Jacob,   4,    33,    55, 

70,  84,  86,  89,  118,  150, 

seq.,  198,  201,  204,  244 
Bonaventura,  St.,   146 


Booth,  General,  54,  59,  63, 

96 
Bosanquet,  Bernard  6 
Brahmo  Samaj,   155 
Brothers   of   Common   Life, 

52 
Buddhism,  72,  182,  258,  292 
Butler,  Dom  C,  65,  169 

Caird,  Edward,  246 
Catherine  of  Genoa,  St.,  55, 

67,  70,  7i_ 
Catherine  of  Siena,  St.,  68, 

71,  87,  128 
Christianity,    Primitive,    56, 

164 
Church,   155,  seq. 

essentials  of,  164,  seq.,  1 71 
future,   188,  281 
gifts  of,  161 
limitations,   170 
Cloud  of  Unknowing,  The, 
87,  96,    104,   seq.,    no, 
123,  143,  145,  146,  147, 
151,   248 
Complex,  108,  seq. 
Conflict,  Psychic,  81,  88,  100, 

103,   216,   seq. 
Consciousness,  116,  seq. 
group,  162,  seq.,  288,  seq. 
spiritual,  219,  225 
Contemplation,       17,       121, 


307 


308 


INDEX 


seq.,  138,  seq.,  212,  219 
in  children,  260 
Conversion,  68,   75,  89,  93. 

103,  265 
Croce,  Bentdetto,  41,  43 
Cultus,  171,  seq. 

Dante,  9 

Delatte,  Abbot,     65 

Dionysius,  the  Areopagite,  9, 

141 
Discipleship,  58,  271,  seq. 

Donne,  John,  16,  46 

Eckhert,  Master,  9,  142, 
Education,     102,    seq.,     177 
seq. 
factors  of,  231,  seq. 
Spencer  on,  234 
Spiritual,    179,    206,    228, 
seq.,  243,  seq.,  251,  264 
dangers  of,  250,  seq.,  262 
Emotion,   Religious,    18,  99, 

145,  250,  263 
Eternal  Life,  3,  48,  195,  271 
Everard,   John,   35,  40 

Fox,  George,  8,  45,  59»  62, 
67,  96,  109,  155,  215, 
270,  273 

Francis  of  Assisi,  St.,  47,  54, 
59,  61,  63,  67,  270,  273 

Friends  of  God,  63,  271 

Fry,  Elizabeth,  55,  63,  210 

Gardner,  Edmund,  87 
God,   Experience  of,   7  seq., 
74,  127,  214,  238,  seq., 

252,  275,  298 


personality  of,  9,  seq.,   17 
seq. 
Grace,  138,  seq.,  206,  2ii 
Groot,  Gerard,  68 
Groups,   61,   271,   285,   seq. 
Guyon,  Madame,  143 
Habit,   85,   90,    102,    172 
Hadfield,  J.  A.,  100 
Haldane,  Viscount,  28 
Hayward,  F.  H.,  259 
Hinduism,    18,   21,   45,    51, 

155,   182 
History  and  spiritual  life,  38, 
seq.,  212 

in  education,  256,  seq. 
Hoffdine,   H.,   24,   212 
Hiigel,  Baron,  F.  von,  2,  29, 
52,^  70,   125,  209 

on  spiritual  life,  195,  seq. 
Humility,  109,  217,  275,  282 
Hymns,  148,  173,  seq. 

Ignatius,  Loyola,  St.,  61,  68, 

95 
Instinct,    76,    78,    seq.,    90, 
seq.,   102,  263 
herd,  272 
in  children,  249 
Intercession,  289 
Introversion,   121 
Isaiah,  12 

Jacopone  da  Todi,  12,  55, 
68,  90,  93,  107,  131 

James,  William,   157 

Jerome,  St.,  54 

Jesus  Christ,  17,  40,  47,  51. 
56,    59,   61,    156,    182, 


INDEX 


309 


198,  202,  268,  273,  279 
Joan  of  Arc,  St.,  95 
'John  Inglesant",  61 
John,  St.,  107,  244 
John  of  the  Cross,  St.,  128, 

208 
Julian  of   Norwich,  20,  87, 

135,  144 

Kabir,  5,   11,  70,   155,   19^ 

Lawrence,  Brother,  55 
Law,  William,  27,  90,  91 
Liturgy,  see  Cultus 
Livingstone,  W.  P.,  96 
Love,  90,  97,  104,  211,  244, 
seq.,  292,  seq. 
defined,  200,  seq. 
Lucie,  Christine,  14 

Mass,  The,    177 
Mc  Dougall,  W.,  163,  285 
Mc  Govern,  W,  M.,  72 
Mechthild    of     Magdebury, 

St.,  89,  129 
Memory,  179,  seq. 
Methodists,    15,    53,    286 
Mind,   analysis  of,   76,   seq. 
foreconscious,    117,  seq. 
instinctive,   89,   seq.,    137, 

seq. 
primitive,     82,     99,     104, 

181,  seq, 
rational,  100,  seq. 
unconscious,       114,      seq., 
141,  seq.,  230,  264 
Motive,  84,   109 
Mystical      Experience,      99, 
107,   113 


Namak,  155 

Nicholson,  Reynold,  ii,   16, 
18,  51,  70 

Pascal,   137 

Patmore,  Coventry,  i  ig 

Paul,    St.,    13,    52,    55,    63, 

68,  81,  83,95,  136,  210, 

244,   269 
Penn,  William,  36,  125,  137 
Plotimus,  2,   5,   II,    18,   29, 

37,  77,  201,  205 
Pratt,     J.     B.,     20,      149, 

157 
Prayer  52,    108,    113,    120, 

seq.,     199,     204,     seq., 

211,  253,  265,  seq. 
Childrens',  229,  243 
corporate,  169,  286 
distractions  in,  126,  149 
education  in,  102,  248 
of  quiet,  124,  141 
Sadhu  on,  209 
short  act,   144 
and  suggestion  138,  seq. 
vocal,  144 
and  work,  253 
Psyche,  The,   77,  seq.,   103, 

116,  230 
Purgation,  69,  76,  90,   108, 

seq.,  218 

Quakers,  63,   164,  174,  258 

Ramakrishna,    149 
Recollection.   123,  seq.,   139, 
208,  219,  seq. 
corporate,  281 
Regeneration,   15,  89,  94 


310 


INDEX 


corporate,  271,  seq.,  293, 
seq. 
Religious    ceremonies,     173, 
seq.,    188 
education,  179,  seq. 
institutions,  154,  seq.,  281 
magic   185,  seq. 
orders,  60 
Repentance,    108,   seq.,   218, 
269 
social,  275,  seq. 
Reverie,   117,   122,  seq. 
Richard  of  St.  Victor,  55,  58 
Rolle,  Richard,  41,  seq.,  67 
Rosarj',  144 

Russell,  Bertrand,  102,  179 

Ruysbroeck,   17,   17,  51,  54, 

seq.,      106,     120,     seq., 

126,     142,     199,     212, 

261,  270,  292 

Sacrifice,    185 

Sadha,  Sundar,  Singh,  68, 

130,  209 
Saints,  41,  257 
Salvation,  76,  89,  seq. 
Salvation  Army,  48,  91,  260, 

286 
Semon,   R.,    179 
Sin,    76,    81,    85,   seq.,    109, 

149,  218 
corporate,  276 
Sins,  Seven  Deadly,  93 
Slessor,  Mary,  54,  seq.,  96 
Social  reform,  282,  seq.,  296 

service,   267,  seq. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  234 
Spirit  of  Power,  13,  52,  62, 

222,    290 


Spiritual    Life 

in  adolescence,  247,  seq. 
characters  of,  22,  seq.,  32, 
43,  54,  58,  64,  76,  96, 
seq.,  158,  seq.,  192,  seq., 
221,  seq.,  261,  269,  274, 
seq.,  283,  292,  298 
contagious,    56,    seq.,    72, 
169,  261,  273,  285,  seq., 
295 
corporate,    58,    153,    seq., 
168,     250,     254,     275, 
seq.,  285,  seq. 
dangers  of  99,  seq.,  263 
development  of,   67,  seq., 

108,  213,  seq. 
and  education,  228,  seq. 
and  history,  38,  seq.,  159, 

seq.,  212 
and  institutions  158,  seq. 
personal,    191,    seq.,    250, 

seq.,  256,  268,   274 
and  prayer,  204,  seq. 
and   psychology,    76,   seq., 

195,  seq. 
and  reading,  211 
social,  aspect  of,  266,  seq. 
and  work,  222,  253,  256, 
282 
Spiritual  Type,  51,  192,  seq., 

226 
Stigmata,   134 
Streeter,  B.  H.,  47,  130 
Sublimation,    91,    96,    seq., 

no,  201,  297 
Sufis,    II,    16,    18,    51,    59, 

70,   155,  258 
Suggestion,     75,     103,     132, 
seq.,    167 


INDEX 


311 


and  faith,  137 
laws  of,   141,  seq. 
in  worship,  148,  173,  seq. 
Surrender,  220,  299 
S3'mbols,  127,  seq.,  173,  seq., 

180,  seq. 
Tagore,    Maharerhi   Deven- 

dranath,  13,  14,  51,  67, 

213 
Tansley,  C,  272 
Tauler,  257,  282 
Teresa,  St,  47,  54,  61,  69, 

71,    88,   95,    123,    142, 

150,  202,  212,  290 
Theologia,  Germanica,  211, 

222 
Theresa  de  I'Enfant,  Jesus, 

V^enerable,  137,   148 
Thomas  a  Kempis,   48,   83, 

128,  139,,  198,  212 
Trinity,  Doctrine  of,  14 


Trotter,  W.  F.,  168 

Unamuno,  Don  M.  de,   10, 

85 
Unification,    98,    seq.,     iio, 

195,  198,  221,  227,  278 
Union   with   God,    67,    72, 

204,  291,  299 
Upton,  T.,   10 

Varendonck,  J,,  117 
Vincent  de  Paul,  St.  55 
Virtues,  Evangelical,  94 
Visions,  129,  seq. 
Vocation,  220,  225,  294,  300 

Wesley,  John,  53,  55,  62,  71, 

210,  270 
Work,  222,  253,  282 
Worship,  175,  255,  260 


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Date  Due 


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